Change of Plans
by icefox94
Summary: Instead of turning Ace in to the Marines after the fight at Banaro Island, Blackbeard decides to continue after Luffy. Now we have the Marines starting a war with the Revolutionary Army. pairings, if any, are undecided
1. The Capture

icefox94: for some reason, whenever I read anything that blackbeard says, I always imagine him sounding like Clancy Brown.

Ace: who?

icefox: he's been in a lot of things, but I'm most familiar with his roles as Baron Praxis in Jak II and Uka Uka and Dr. Neo Cortex in the Crash Bandicoot games. For Crash Bandicoot, it's mostly Uka Uka. I don't know why, but whenever I read fanfiction or fanart or manga or whatever and blackbeard is saying something, I always imagine him with that voice.

Ace: what does that voice sound like?

icefox: ht tp:/w m/watc h?v=dGJ ZilPVp0s take the spaces out and skip to around 3:30

Ace: okay

icefox: … why do I still write these authors notes when no one reads them?

Ace: because there is a possibility that someone will read them. Is there something you wanted to say other than the reason why you like the happy bunnies in final fantasy 12?

icefox: I love those little sweethearts! If you're hurt around them, they'll heal you with a cure spell or give you potions! Sometimes during fights too. My archer fran was getting beat up by a flying monster once in the ozmone plain and my 2 swordmen basch and vaan couldn't block the attacks cause it would just fly over them and an ozmone hare was nearby and gave fran 1 potion and healed her twice with cure before basch, vaan, and fran were able to defeat the flying monster. That's not what I wanted to say though! D:

Ace: ^^() what did you want to say?

icefox: I wanted to tell everyone to raise awareness for Lyme Disease cause it's not a well known disease so the people who have it don't get the help they need. I know someone with lyme disease and she has a son who has it and a daughter who is starting to show signs of it. Because no one really knows about this disease, they don't get the help they need. I also found out that most people who are allergic to chocolate aren't actually allergic to the chocolate, but cockroaches. When they pick the cocoa beans they put them on a big white sheet to dry and the cockroaches come. They can't always get all of the cockroaches out, so there are cockroaches in the chocolate we eat and that makes some people get allergic reactions.

Ace: … good source of protein?

icefox: XD that's what I said. Now let's start the story. Would you do the disclaimer for me?

Ace: sure. icefox94 does not own One Piece. One Piece is owned by Eiichiro Oda.

icefox: thank you darlin'. enjoy the first chapter everyone! Especially Sachiel Angelo for helping me figure everything out for this story! Thank you so much! X3

Chapter One: The Capture

"Oi! Wait a minute Teach! I've been looking for you." says a certain shirtless pyromaniac crouching on the roof of an abandoned house, arms resting on his knees and eyes hidden from view by his orange hat. The ugly, fat, black haired man the words were directed to looks at the speaker with a smile that was missing teeth.

"Oh, Ace... Commander Ace!" Blackbeard greets, making Ace grimace.

"Don't... don't call me "Commander" any more. Only people who can respect others use that word. You're mocking me!" Ace says, looking at Blackbeard with slight annoyance leaking through his fading grimace.

"Oh, you're Firefist Ace." Laffitte says while taking a few steps forward.

"Yes, I am. Hello there." The fire user greets with a nod towards the pale man before directing his attention back to Blackbeard. "You... have become a fine captain on your own, huh? "Blackbeard Pirates" captain Marshall D. Teach?"

Blackbeard just grins and laughs. "Zehahaha. Whats going on Ace? Long time, no see! What's up? How did you know I was here?"

"Teach, let's stop beating around the bush. You've lived twice as long as I have; There's no way you don't understand the situation." Ace says a little bluntly, lacing his fingers in front of him.

"Alright. I understand... then... let me ask you one thing. Ace! Why don't you be my nakama? Conquer the world with me!" When Ace stays silent, Blackbeard continues. "I've already planned how to do it! Whitebeard's era is over! I will be the Pirate King! To start with... I'll finish off "Strawhat Luffy" in Water 7 just ahead of here, and deliver him to the world government myself." Here Ace's eyes widen.

"Luffy? What?"

"Hrmm? You know him?" Blackbeard questions, noticing Ace's widened eyes get hidden from the shadows of his hat again as he bends his head forward and starts to shake slightly. The Blackbeard Pirates captain is starting to wonder why his former commander started to shake when he gets an answer he never would have expected.

"Looks like I really can't let you roam around. He's... my younger brother! And of course I won't be..." Ace starts but pauses when Auger pulls his gun off of his back and shoots several bullets into Ace's freckled torso and skull, leaving fiery holes where the bullets passed through. The Whitebeard commander doesn't even flinch and stays crouched on the roof with a hand on his hat until his wounds heal themselves "... your nakama." Once the holes are gone, Ace lifts his head up to show murderous eyes, tilts his face slightly to the side, and smirks. "Heehee... We've got someone with bad manners here." The thought of punishing these nobodies makes his smirk grow into a grin. There was no way he is going to let anyone so much a touch his little brother. Not while there is breath in his body. Ace swiftly stands and pulls his arms in towards his sides, making his hands look like guns. "HIGAN!"

*#*#*#*#*#

"Zehahaha! Sorry Ace! Looks like we are still going after your brother. He just attacked Enies Lobby with only 60 others to save one nakama and escaped a Buster Call, not to mention declared war on the World Government. His bounty is bound to go up higher than even yours in a few days. But don't worry. Since he is Ace's little brother, I'll turn him in to the Marines alive! Give my regards to Pops next time you see him!" Blackbeard says to the pile of bloody, beat up limbs known as Firefist Ace before walking away with his crew. The bloody pile trembles, then shifts until it resembles a fully intact yet heavily injured man.

Ace tries to push himself up on trembling arms but fails and falls back to the ground. He forces his eyes open to stare at Blackbeard with unfocused, blood stained vision. The last thing to go through the Whitebeard commanders mind is the hazy vision of Blackbeard laughing with his new crew and the fact that he failed to protect the most important person in his life, the one who gave him a reason to live.

'Luffy, I'm so sorry.'

*#*#*#*#

(Aboard the Moby Dick)

"Marco, why are we going to Banaro Island?" A small, dark haired woman(?) asks. A blond pineapple haired man sighs. His small nakama has been asking him random questions all day and it was starting to get on his nerves.

"Because Banaro Island is an island under the protection of Pops. Since we are responsible for their safety if we don't hear from anyone living there in a certain amount of time we have to go there in case something bad happened that we can fix. Anymore questions Haruta?"

"No. I'm good for now." Haruta answers before skipping away to use Jozu as a jungle gym. The silent diamond user is use to such treatment and doesn't even pause as he went about his usual business with the child-like woman climbing onto his shoulders. Marco shakes his head and continues what he was doing before being interrupted by Haruta.

Soon their destination comes into sight. Marco is about to give off the usual disembarking orders when he is stopped by a large hand on his head. The phoenix peers through the gigantic fingers connected to the hand to see his captain's face staring at the island's shore. Marco follows the stare to find a familiar Striker almost hidden behind some rocks.

"Ace is here."

Whitebeard nods, then looks down at his 1st division commander and adopted son.

"I want you to go find him. I fear something bad may have happened."

Marco nods and, once Pops removes his hand, runs to the railing, jumps off of it, and turns into a blue and yellow phoenix. The fiery blue bird flies high over the island and freezes. Over half the island has been reduced to rubble by an unknown force. To Marco, it looks like everything was sucked into something that completely crushed it and spat it back out. He is just glad this is the uninhabited part of the island.

'I bet Ace is down there.' Marco thinks to himself as he almost glides over the ruins. He doesn't know why he thinks Ace is here. There is just something inside him telling him that Ace is somewhere in this destruction. After covering almost the entire area in his aerial search, Marco is about to land and search more on foot when he spots a red, black, and tan mass in the middle of a rubble free circle. Marco focuses his eyes on the mass and recognizes two familiar tattoos.

"Oh my Devil Fruit! Ace!"

Marco shoots out of the sky and lands next to Ace fully human. He feels his neck for a pulse then sighs in relief when he feels the weak and slow beats. "Good. He's still alive! Now to make sure he can be moved." Marco says to himself before checking to see if he could move Ace without snapping anything or making things worse.

"Okay. Everything seems strong enough to move. Let's get you to the Moby Dick."

With that said, Marco gently lifts Ace onto his back, turns into a phoenix, then flies towards the ship with the injured man. Once he reaches the Moby Dick, Marco lands as quickly as he could without hurting Ace and gently lays him on the deck of the ship. The nurses knew right away that something was wrong when they saw Marco flying back with Ace, so when the phoenix laid the fire user down they were able to prepare what they needed to save him.

"Marco, what happened to Ace?" Whitebeard asks as the nurses see to Ace.

"I don't know. He was like that when I found him. If I had to guess, I would say it was Teach." The pineapple blond answered. Whitebeard is about to say something in response when they hear a shout from the island. Both look towards the direction of the voice to see Haruta holding a familiar hat and backpack.

"I found Ace's hat and backpack in a clearing and Namur found his Striker. Have either of you seen him?"

"Yeah. I just brought him back." Marco answers.

"Ace is here? Where is he?"

"Up here. The nurses are fixing him up. I found him in a clearing of rubble not too far from here."

"Ace is here and hurt? What happened?" The small woman panics.

"I don't know. We'll have to ask him when he wakes up." The phoenix answers while agitatedly running his hand through his pineapple hair.

"Will he be alright?" Haruta asks while climbing aboard.

"He will be fine." Whitebeard assures her.

"How can you be so sure Pops?" Haruta asks her father, teary-eyed.

"Because it is Ace. He would never let himself die because if he died, he would make his little brother sad." The giant man answered. Izou, who was nearby, discreetly turned his head away and coughed into his fan. The cough sounded suspiciously like "brother complex".

"I guess that's not all that surprising. I remember asking him why he got so happy when he saw Stawhat Luffy's bounty poster the day the news coo brought the newspaper with his bounty in it. He said he was just so happy to see that he was doing okay and that he would be seeing him soon. When I told him he had a brother complex, he just laughed and told me he couldn't help but have one. Because of how reckless Luffy is, Ace is constantly worrying."

"Well, that would explain the relief but not all that happiness. That was too much just for mere excitement at seeing his little brother." Haruta frowns.

"That's what I said. Ace told me it was mostly because of his past. No one liked him or believed that he deserved to be born. When Luffy came along, Ace tried to push him away but Luffy was determined to become his friend. When Ace finally asked Luffy why he tried so hard, Luffy said it was because Ace was the only one he had and if he wasn't there he would be sad and lonely. Before Luffy came along, Ace didn't care if he lived or died. He just did what he wanted and treated others the way they treated him. Luffy gave Ace a reason to live."

"Oh wow, I never would have guessed." Haruta says, her wide eyes looking at Ace with sadness.

"Wait a minute. You said "when Luffy came along" at the beginning. How old were they?" Izou asks.

"I believe Ace said he was 10 and Luffy was 7." Marco says after thinking for a moment.

"So, they're not brothers?" Izou guesses, thinking the two were kind of like the Whitebeard Pirates in that respect. They were family but none of them were really related.

"Not by blood, no." Marco confirms.

"But I am in every other sense of the word." A slightly raspy voice whispers. Everyone present looks towards the origin of the voice to see Ace awake and mostly bandaged.

"ACE!" Everyone exclaims, except for Whitebeard who laughs his unique laugh behind a mug of rum.

"Hey guys." Ace greets with a weak smile.

"Ace, what happened?" Marco asks. Ace's weak smile turns into a mix between a frown and a glare.

"I found Teach."

"Hm. Thought so." Whitebeard nods. "I am guessing you fought and lost."

Ace nods as well. "Yeah. It was because of his weird Devil Fruit he stole from Thatch, the Dark Dark Fruit. His darkness pulls everything towards it, absorbs it, then spits it back out completely crushed."

"Crushed?" Marco thinks aloud, remembering what he saw of the island while he was searching for Ace. Ace nods again in confirmation.

"He can also use his darkness to cancel out Devil Fruits." Everyone's eyes widen at these words.

"Cancel out Devil Fruit Powers?" Haruta exclaims.

"Yeah, but he has to be in physical contact with you or it wont work. That's how he beat me."

"So he pulled you in with his Devil Fruit power, then attacked you when you couldn't use your own?" Izou summarized.

"Pretty much." Ace says.

"What do you think he is doing now?" Haruta ponders. At hearing this, Ace freezes. Marco notices this and leans forward so his face is closer to Ace's.

"Ace? What's wrong?"

"I know what he's going to do." Ace answers, clenching his fists at his sides.

"You do? What?" the blond asks. Ace slowly sits up with the help of Marco now that the nurses were done bandaging him up. He looks up at the blond commander, then his father, with angry and helpless eyes.

"He's going to turn Luffy in to the Marines to become a Shichibukai."

*#*#*#*#

_Some time later (Amazon Lily)_

"Man, I'm so stuffed!" Luffy yells happily as he walks in a random direction in the forest. 3 days ago, Luffy and his nakama had arrived at Sabaody Archipelago to get their ship, the Thousand Sunny, coated so that they could go to Fishman Island then enter the New World. It didn't take long to find the coating mechanic, former first mate of the Pirate King Silvers Rayleigh. When the Strawhats found out it would take 3 days to coat the Sunny, they decided to do some exploring. Things happened and the Strawhat Pirates were separated over the entire world because of Shichibukai Bartholomew Kuma's Devil Fruit powers.

It took 3 days for Luffy to arrive at Amazon Lily. He was found by Marguerite, a young Kuja warrior, and her friends after he ate a weird mushroom and brought him into the village to be treated, thinking he was female. When they found out he was male, they imprisoned him and tried to kill him. After he won a fight against the Kuja Empress' 2 younger sisters, the Empress agreed to take Luffy back to Sabaody Archipelago in the morning and the village's dinner turned into a big party thanks to Luffy. Luffy couldn't eat his meal in peace because of everyone's curiosity about males, so Marguerite helped Luffy escape his new fans and brought him to Elder Nyon's house to eat dinner. After much eating and talking, Luffy decided to take a walk in the forest to let his food digest.

After aimlessly wandering around for about half an hour, Luffy manages to make his way to the shores of Amazon Lily where something he does not expect to see waits.

"Zehahaha! Hello, Strawhat Luffy." a fat black haired man greets.

"Hey! You're the jerk from Jaya!" Luffy comments, completely bypassing the fact that the stranger knows his name. He does have a 300,000,000 beli bounty on his head after all.

"My name is Marshall D. Teach, but most people nowadays call me Blackbeard." the man answers Luffy's comment, not that he cares what his name is... wait. The name Blackbeard sounds familiar. It has something to do with Ace... That's when it clicks.

"You're the man that Ace is searching for. The one that killed one of his nakama."

"Yup. And now I'm here for your bounty." Hearing this, Blackbeard's crew pop up out of wherever they were hiding and aim their weapons at the rubber man. Luffy just grins and pulls his beloved straw hat further over his eyes.

"Shishishi. You can try."

*#*#*#*#

_In hour or so later_

"Luffy! Where are you? Hebihime-sama would like to see you! Luffy!" Marguerite calls as she searches the forest for Amazon Lily's rare male guest. About half an hour after Luffy decides to take a walk, the feverish black haired beauty known as Kuja's Empress Boa Hancock has one of her warriors go fetch Luffy at the elders house. Marguerite tells the petite woman where Luffy is and goes off to find him. This was over an hour ago and Hebihime-sama must be getting impatient.

"Luffy, where did you go?" the blond Kuja ponders worriedly as she reaches the shores of the island. She looks around and doesn't see Luffy so she steps back to turn around when she notices something out of place. Walking closer, she realizes it is a battered straw hat. A very familiar straw hat with 3 stitched lines on the top and a red ribbon above the brim.

"Luffy's straw hat!" Marguerite says with a gasp as she runs over and carefully picks the straw hat up. "Something must have happened to Luffy! I have to get back to the village!"

With that said, she races off to her village, running as fast as she can with the precious straw hat clutched safely to her chest. It takes her a surprisingly short amount of time to reach the elders house and when she repeats what she discovered to the short black haired Kuja pirate waiting for her, she is rushed to the palace.

Boa Hancock's relieved feverish gaze tuns into a glare after she sees who is accompanying her short haired pirate. After the Kuja warriors explain what happened to the impatient empress, all hell breaks loose.

"WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN LUFFY IS MISSING?" Hancock screams, blue opal eyes livid.

"I looked all over the forest and couldn't find him! When I got to the shores, I found his straw hat! He told me that it's very important to him! It's his treasure! He would never just leave it on the ground! Something must have happened to him!" Marguerite cries as she clutches the well loved hat to her chest. Hancock's furious yet worried gaze rests on her beloved's precious hat before snapping to her petite pirate.

"Ran. Have all available Kuja warriors search for Luffy!"

"Yes! Hebihime-sama!" Ran responds then hurries out of the room to fill out her orders.

"We will look too, Ane-sama." Sandersonia and Marigold say. Hancock nods and they leave the room. Marguerite bows to the younger Boa sisters when they leave and is in the process of straitening out of it when her empress' voice brings her attention to the bed where the sick woman is resting against her humungous snake.

"Marguerite. Give me Luffy's hat. I will take care of it in his absence."

"Yes, Hebihime-sama." the blond Kuja warrior answers and hands the hat over. Hancock holds the straw hat like it is something sacred and gently hugs it to her chest, unknowingly mimicking Marguerite's earlier actions.

'Luffy. Please be okay.'

End Chapter One

Songs

Sweet Dance (Sweet Dreams/Just Dance mashup) by Lady Gaga and Eurythmics

Hold On by Good Charlotte

Army of Doom by X-Ray Dog

Sakura Drops by Utada Hikaru

Memories by Within Temptation

Seasons of Love from RENT

Haruka Kanata by Asian Kung-Fu Generation (Naruto)

No One by Aly and AJ

Lilium by Kumiko Noma (Elfen Lied)

Gr8 Story by SuG (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

In My Head by Jason Derulo

Hikari e by The Babystars (One Piece)

No Place Like London from Sweeney Todd

Boten Anna by Basshunter

Leven Polkka by Loituma

Bad Romance sung by On The Rocks

H.T. (Destroying Angels Remix) by Tsuneo Imahori (Trigun)

One Week by Barenaked Ladies


	2. Reactions to the Grand Line Times

Ace: you seem to be writing a lot lately. Is it because of your excitement about getting X-Men: First Class and Thor?

icefox: partially, but most of it was because I had to go back to school soon. Now it's because I'm really excited about the Hunger Games movie coming out next year. The most random things make me want to write. Kinda funny. I don't have anything long winded to say until the end of the chapter and please read that. I need everyone's opinion... cept for Sachiel Angelo. I already know what she wants. She can tell me again anyways if she wants though... Ace, could you be a dear and do the disclaimer?

Ace: sure. icefox94 does not own One Piece.

icefox: so no one sue me, okay? Okay.

Chapter Two: Reactions to the Grand Line Times

_The Moby Dick_

"Hey, Ace!" The news coo is here with the Grand Line Times!" Haruta calls as she races to the partially healed fire user.

"Does it have any information on Luffy?" Ace asks, shooting up from his slouched position next to Pops, Marco, Vista, Izou, and Namur. Whitebeard forbid Ace from doing anything about Blackbeard since he's so injured, so the past month or so has been worrisome for the overprotective big brother.

"Yes..." Haruto answers but trails off when she sees her nakama's face. Marco notices this and narrows his eyes.

"Haruta, let me see the newspaper."

Haruta stares worriedly at Ace before turning to Marco and handing him the paper. Marco quickly finds the article involving Luffy and reads it, eyes widening the more he reads.

"Marco, what is it?" Ace asks, slightly afraid of the answer. When the pineapple blond doesn't respond, Ace raises his voice. "Marco?... Marco! Please!" Finally, Marco reacts by turning to look at his nearly hysterical nakama. "What happened to my little brother?" Marco sighs and answers.

"...Your brother...was captured by Teach. According to the newspaper, he was found on the shores of Amazon Lily and was defeated there before being taken to Impel Down. He will stay there until the marines are ready to transport him to Marineford for his execution."

"What? He's being executed?" Haruta exclaims. Ace is in too much shock to do anything but stare at Marco in disbelief.

"Why is he being taken to Marineford for his execution?" Izou asks.

"Because they found out who Luffy's father is. They're trying to start a war with him."

"Who in the world is Strawhats father for the Marines to start a war with him?" Vista wonders aloud.

"... Monkey D. Dragon."

"What was that?" Haruta asks while everyone turns to look at Ace, who finally snapped out of his shock and spoke up.

"Luffy's father. His name is Monkey D. Dragon."

"Monkey D. Dragon? Never heard of him." Namur says after thinking for a moment. Everyone else agree except for Marco and Whitebeard.

"Of course you have heard of him. The entire world has heard of him. You just know him as something else." Whitebeard says, shaking his head at his children.

"Then what would we know him as?" Haruta asks, making everyone stare at her in surprise.

"Don't you already know?" Izou inquires.

"No. I only read as far as Ace's little brother getting executed. So who is Luffy's father?" Haruta answers Izou's question, causing everyone to sweatdrop, before repeating her question to Pops.

"The Revolutionary Dragon, leaders of the Revolutionary Army and the most wanted man in the world."

Silence reigns after Pops' answer before being broken by yells of surprise.

"Eh? The Revolutionary Dragon? No way! What's next? His grandfather being Garp the Fist?" Haruta exclaims.

"Actually..." Ace starts, making everyone, excluding Pops and Marco, stare at Ace in disbelief.

"No way. Your guys' grandfather is Vice Admiral Garp?" Haruta exclaims once more, her eyes so wide they look like they're about to fall out of her skull.

"Why else do you think Ace would hide every time his ship appeared?" Marco points out.

"I wasn't hiding! I just didn't want to deal with him!" Ace shouts with a blush of embarrassment.

"Oh. So you've been hiding from me this entire time?" says a voice behind Ace, making him freeze and go pale for a moment before spinning around to stare at his grinning grandfather.

"J-jii-jii!" Ace stutters, backing away.

"Calling me old man and backing away? That's no way to greet your grandfather!" Garp yells as he yanks Ace forward by his necklace and gives him a Fist of Love. Ace screams in pain and falls to the ground, then crawls away from the marine hero and attaches himself to the leg of the person nearest to him: Marco.

"You stupid old man! Who in their right mind would call you "grandpa" when all you do is abuse and try to kill them?" Ace shouts while clinging to Marco's pant leg.

"A Fist of Love is not abuse and I never tried to kill you. When I tossed you into the ocean-"

"When I couldn't swim!"

"-To fight the local seaking and threw you into the Beast of Mt. Corvo's lair for an entire day, it was all to turn you into a strong Marine!"

While Ace and Garp continue to argue, the present Whitebeard pirates are frozen in their battle

positions, faces paling as they imagine what horrors Ace must have gone through growing up. They are snapped out of this shock, however, when they here Ace cry out in pain again. Marco steps forward and grabs the wrist that is holding Ace up by his necklace.

"Garp-san, I know you must be excited to see your grandson after who knows how many years, but Ace is recovering from serious injuries and we don't want him getting more."

"Alright." Garp says with a shrug and let's go. Ace backs away and stops near Whitebeard's knee, glaring at Garp the entire time.

"How did you get here?" Vista asks.

"And when?" Haruta adds.

"Well, I got here when you-" Garp starts, pointing at Haruta when he says 'you'. "started freaking out about my son being Luffy's father and I got here by jumping aboard from my ship." Here, Garp points his thumb over his shoulder towards 2 young marines apologizing to Pops on the railing of the Moby Dick and the marine ship behind them.

"How did we miss that?" The present commanders exclaim. Marco turns to them with annoyed half open eyes.

"By being idiots and not paying attention to your surroundings."

Everyone reacts by either anger or pouts, causing Garp to laugh at them. Marco shakes his head than turns to the marines apologizing to his calm captain.

"-st passing by when Garp-san saw your ship and ordered us to sail close enough to jump aboard." A pink haired boy was saying while bowing.

"We weren't planning on attacking you or anything." A blond with visor-like sunglasses adds.

"No, it's quite alright. He hasn't done any harm except for his Fist of Love and he said he wouldn't do it again." Whitebeard assures with a calm voice, not really minding the marines on his ship as long as they don't hurt any of his children or destroy anything.

The two marines sigh in relief. They knew they wouldn't stand a chance in a fight against Whitebeard and his crew if the man was angry at them.

"Oh, good."

"Since you were talking about me and Dragon, I'll assume you've heard about Luffy's execution." Garp says, changing the subject and going serious.

"Luffy-san." the pink haired boy says sadly. Ace looks over at the two marines curiously for this.

"Do you know Luffy?"

"Ah-um, yes." the boy says, turning to the fire user nervously. "I was a cabin boy for Iron Club Alvida when I met him. He didn't have any crew members or a ship yet and was just floating in the ocean in a barrel. Someone pulled the barrel aboard and he jumped out and accidentally knocked out the 3 pirates around me. After he ate, he fought Alvida and escaped using a life boat and went to Shells island to rescue Roronoa Zoro and get me into the marines."

"Sounds like you owe Luffy a lot." Ace says with a fond smile. The pink haired boy smiles.

"Yes! He was my first friend and supported my dream of becoming a marine even though he was a pirate and told me it was okay for me to want to become an admiral someday. He said that I couldn't be anything other than an admiral if I wanted to fight him in the New World." Coby says, then widens his eyes in surprise and smiles at Ace sheepishly. "Oh, my name's Coby, by the way. I probably should have said that earlier. Sorry."

"No, it's okay. My name's Ace."

"Luffy's brother, right? Garp-san has told me about you."

"And now I need to tell you about Luffy's execution." Garp says, expression an odd mix of serious and fondness. Everyone nods and Garp begins to tell the Whitebeard pirates everything he knows about the situation from his seat on the floor of the deck.

Ace is listening with a troubled look on his face when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks to his left to see Coby give him a sad, torn smile. When Ace returns the sad smile, Coby takes his hand back in favor of wrapping his arm around his drawn up knees with his other arm and stares at Garp with a troubled look as well.

'I doubt he'll be able to fight us at Marineford.' Ace thinks to himself as he shifts his gaze back to his grandfather. 'Coby-san is probably torn between helping us save Luffy as his friend and fighting us as a marine. I don't know what's going to happen in this war. I just hope I don't have to bury another brother.'

_Amazon Lily_

"Ane-sama. One of our seakings found us a newspaper in a nearby ship." Marigold says as she and Sandersonia walk into their older sisters room.

"Why would that interest me, Mari?" Hancock asks with a depressed tone of voice, not moving from her position curled up on her bed clutching Luffy's strawhat to her chest while Salome hovers worriedly next to her.

"Because Strawhat is on the front page."Sandersonia answers, smiling in relief when the raven haired beauty bolts into a sitting position and reaches her hand out to grab a newspaper. Marigold steps forward and gives the paper to Hancock who immediately finds the article and reads the contents.

"Marshall D. Teach fought and captured Luffy on our shores and turned him into the Marines to be executed so that he could become a Shichibukai? Nonsense! This has to be wrong!" Hancock exclaims once she's done reading.

"It's true that the Marines will lie every now and then to cover up their mess ups or make themselves look better, but they wouldn't lie about this. Strawhat is no where on the island dead or alive, he couldn't have swam away because of his Devil Fruit powers and he wouldn't have sailed away because we have the only ship and we promised to take him to Sabaody Archipelago in the morning. The only explanation is that he was taken away by the Blackbeard pirate captain." Sandersonia explains in her most calm voice, hoping to minimize her elder sisters panic.

"Then how did he get here?" Hancock demands to know.

"No one knows. The guards were as vigilant as always, there were seakings surrounding the island underwater, and it was not possible for Blackbeard to have had a ship made out of seastone."

"Well, that doesn't matter anyways. Assemble the Kuja warriors. We're going to rescue Luffy!"

Sandersonia and Marigold gasp when they hear this.

"But Ane-sama! You're a Shichibukai! You can't go against the Marines!" Marigold reminds her sister.

"Damn, you're right! I'll just help him secretly then. The rest of you pretend to defy me by rescuing him because of how he helped us. I might get Amazon Lily in trouble for directly helping Luffy, but you shouldn't." Hancock instructs.

"So we're rescuing him at his execution?" Sandersonia inquires.

"Yes. It would be easier to convince them of your defiance going to Marineford with me then turning on me and attacking marines instead of going to Impel Down and fighting your way through the guards to get to Level 6 then fight your way back and hope that our ship wasn't destroyed while you were gone."

"But won't the rescue be harder at Marineford? The Marines are picking a fight with the Revolutionary Army. They will have assembled enough marines to fight a war. If Dragon doesn't take the bait, the Kuja warriors alone wouldn't stand a chance against them." Marigold ponders aloud.

"I doubt we will be the only ones trying to save Strawhat. He's the kind of person who draws people towards him whether they like it or not. I have a feeling that there will be plenty of people at Marineford to rescue him." Sandersonia assures, making Hancock blush and smile and Marigold frown in worry.

"Are you sure about that?" Marigold asks.

"Mostly. Whether they come because they're friends, they want to kill him themselves, or they just don't want him to die because finding One Piece would be boring without challenging competition, there will be more people than just us Kuja warriors fighting for Strawhat."

"Alright. If you say so."

"Now that that's settled, tell the Kuja warriors. The execution is in a little over a month. It's to early to go to Marineford now, but we can at least train and make sure everything is ready for the journey and the village will be okay when we are gone."

"Yes, Ane-sama." Marigold and Sandersonia say in unison before walking out of the room. They had to prepare for war.

_The Revolutionary Army (Location Unknown)_

"Are you positive you do not want to join us?" A hooded tattooed man asks a dark skinned Devil Fruit user we know and love.

The Revolutionaries that helped Robin in the East Blue convinced her to meet with their leader when she refused to join in favor of meeting up with her nakama. Robin, of course, had no intention to join the Revolutionary Army, but the temptation to meet her captain's father was too strong to resist. Knowing that Dragon's location was on the way to Sabaody Archipelago made things even better.

Once Robin and her escort reached Dragon's location, the scholar was taken to the Revolutionary Dragon's rooms where she met the leader and his assistant.

Monkey D. Dragon was a tall man with a commanding presence that demands respect. He had dark hair, equally dark but kind eyes, both of which painfully reminded Robin of Luffy, and a tattoo on the left side of his tan face. Everything else was covered by a dark cloak.

His companion was equally, if not more so, mysterious. He also wore a cloak that covered all but his face and wore a top hat with goggles on it. Because of this, all Robin could see of him was blond hair and a tan face with a brighter than the sun smile that the archeologist had thought was unique to the D. brothers.

Dragon introduced himself and did his best to convince Robin to join the Revolutionary Army while his assistant leaned on the wall beside them, casually holding his 3 section staff at his side.

"I am positive that I do not want to join the Revolutionary Army. My nakama are waiting for me." Robin answers, determined to reunite with her nakama.

"Very well." Dragon says with a sigh. "Just know that the invitation will always be there."

"Of course."

"Would you like a ride to Sabaody Archipelago? I have a few ships going past there anyways. One of them could drop you off there." Dragon offers, making Robin smile.

"That would be lovely. Thank you." The scholar thanks. Before Dragon could reply there is an urgent knock on the door. The assistant goes to open the door and comes back with a worried man clutching a Grand Line Times.

"Quinn says there's something you should see in the newspaper." The assistant says, tenor voice surprisingly smooth.

"What is it?" Dragon asks. The man just holds the paper out.

"Top of the front page."

The cloaked man looks at Quinn curiously before resting his gaze on the paper in his hands. The rooms occupants watch as Dragon's face goes from calm, to disbelieving, then angry. Once he is done, he slowly folds the paper back up and hands it back to Quinn.

"Dragon, what's wrong?" The assistant asks.

"... My son is going to be executed at Marineford in a month."

"L-luffy's going to be executed?" Robin gasps, eyes wide.

"Yes, he's being held at Impel Down until the execution, but how did you know Luffy is my son?" Dragon answers then questions.

"Your father visited us at Water 7 and accidentally told us."

"So, your son is being imprisoned in Impel Down and will soon be executed at Marineford. What do you want to do?" The assistant inquires. Dragon thinks for a minute before answering.

"The Revolutionary Army is not quite ready to expose itself to the world, so I would prefer not to go to war."

"So a small incognito rescue at Impel Down?" The assistant guesses.

"Yes. I would prefer going myself, but I cannot risk getting captured right now. It will have to be a few volunteers that are strong and good at being invisible."

"I'll go. I'm good at being inconspicuous and I'm strong enough to fight off most enemies if I'm ever seen." The assistant volunteers.

"Very well. What about the two of you?" Dragon questions.

"Of course I'm going. Luffy is my captain and precious nakama. I will not leave him to die." Robin says, determination in her eyes.

"Well said. Quinn?"

"Yes. I have children as well, so I know how hard this must be for you."

Seeing the faces determined to save his son made Dragon smile. The face that looked so similar to her captains face smiling a smile so similar to his brighter than the sun smile made Robin almost break down in tears. Not just because of the many times she remembers seeing Luffy smiling and laughing, but because of the face she last remembers seeing on her captains face. That panicked look he gave her as he reached out towards her, not wanting to lose all of his nakama.

"Nico Robin? What's wrong?"

Robin raises her bowed head to see the blurry image of the room's other occupants looking at her with concern. Robin swallows, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat, and blinks away the tears that had welled up in her eyes.

"... The last time I saw my captains face was at Sabaody Archipelago. We were being separated by Bartholomew Kuma's Paw Paw Powers. At the time, we didn't know that we were being separated. We just knew that our nakama were disappearing. I was the last to disappear before Luffy. He looked so panicked... so desperate to save at least one of his nakama, Right before I disappeared, his expression turned so sorrowful. It nearly broke my heart to see someone so happy and bright he could be a sun be so sorrowful."

The normally calm woman begins to break down, head lowered once more and hugging herself as she begins to shake.

_'I get it. I guess that's that. Okay... Don't worry! She's not a bad person!'_

_'What have you been reading all this time? Eh? Did I say something wrong?'_

_'Hey Robin! Look at what I found! Isn't it awesome?'_

_'Robin. I still haven't heard it from your mouth. SAY YOU WANNA LIVE!'_

_'LET'S GO BACK TOGETHER! ROBIN!'_

_'ROBIN!'_

"Robin."

Robin is startled out of her reminiscence by the assistant calling her name and putting his hand on her shoulder. The scholar looks up to see kind sympathetic blue eyes.

"I promise you, we will rescue your captain. That look of sorrow will not be the last expression you will see on his face."

"Th-thank you." Robin says shakily as she wipes the tears away. The assistant smiles and squeezes her shoulder reassuringly before letting go and turning to Dragon.

"So when are we leaving?"

"Right away. It will take you almost a month to get to Impel Down. Luffy will be in Level 6 so try to avoid fighting as long as possible. The more fights you get into, the more marines come to stop you. If you can, find Emporio Ivankov. It's about time he escaped and you will need his help if someone gets hurt. I will send a letter with you to prove I sent you. And take this." Dragon instructs as he gives his assistant a den den mushi. "Call us once you are out and let me know if you were successful or not. If you are not, head strait for Marineford and help us fight." The trio nods and the assistant leads them towards the door.

A few hours later finds Dragon standing on his balcony watching the small ship carrying his son's rescue team sail away.

"Good luck you three. You are going to need it where you are headed."

_Sabaody Archipelago_

A dark skinned tattooed young man sighs as he finishes reading his copy of the Grand Line Times.

"Why did Mugiwara-ya have to get captured? Finding One Piece is going to be boring now." The young man complains.

"Boring? Did you forget about me Trafalgar Law?" A voice asks indignantly.

The captain of the Heart Pirates turns to his right to rest his sleep deprived eyes on the pale redhead that just spoke.

"Hello Mister Eustass. Have you read the paper recently?"

The Kidd Pirate captain nods and crosses his arms over his bare chest.

"Who would have thought that that little punk is the son of the Revolutionary Dragon?"

"Yes, it is pretty unbelievable when you haven't seen what we have seen." Law agrees. Kidd tilts his head to the side.

"What we've seen? You talkin' about him punching a Tenryuubito in the Human Auction House?"

"Yes. It takes guts to do something like that."

"More like lack of brains." Kidd snorts.

"True. He did seem a little brainless." Law smirks.

"... I'm thinking of helping out in the war." Kidd comments, making Law blink at him in surprise.

"Captain Eustass Kidd helping someone else? Now that's new." Law says in a surprised voice than turns to a masked blond walking up to them. "Killer, is your captain sick?"

Killer sighs and shakes his head.

"I wish he was, but no. He just wants to help out so that finding One Piece won't be so boring. He also figured he could raise his bounty or someone else in our crew could get a bounty and have the crew's overall bounty rise."

"And it might be fun." Kidd adds with a sadistic smile. Law just shakes his head and smirks.

"Sounds like fun."

Kidd blinks a few times in surprise than grins.

"You going too?"

"Possibly. I'll probably watch from here for a while. They're going to be airing it down there." Law answers, pointing his thumb out of the window to the plaza below.

"We'll probably watch from here first as well. Captain says we're going, but the rest of the crew doesn't want to go until we are sure there will be others there." killer says, his head turned towards his captain who was glaring at him.

"Of course we're going Killer!"

"Think about this rationally Captain! No one knows anything about the Revolutionary Dragon and the Revolutionary Army does not want a war with the marines. If they don't come to Marineford we'll be killed!"

Kidd and Killer stare at each other for a moment before Kidd sighs.

"Alright. We'll watch from here first."

Killer sighs in relief and Law smiles.

'Things might get interesting soon.'

_Unknown Location_

"Really?" A tan, curly haired man asks as he stares at the newspaper article he just read.

"What is it?" A light haired woman asks as she pushes her glasses up.

"Strawhat Luffy got captured by some nobody and was placed in Impel Down. In about a month he will be taken to Marineford to be executed."

The curly haired man's companions freeze in shock before talking at the same time and trying to get the paper from the mans hands. He holds it away from the group and silences them with a glare. Once everyone is quiet, a blond speaks up.

"Why is Strawhat being taken to Marineford to be executed?"

"Because the marines want a war with his father." The curly haired man answers.

"His father?" A tall dark haired man asks.

"The Revolutionary Dragon."

The group crowded around the man holding the newspaper either gasp, whistle, or raise their eyebrows in surprise. An angry looking dark haired man even went so far as to yell in surprise and fall over. The curly haired man looks at the one that fell over in annoyance.

"So, are we going to help him?" The light haired woman inquires. This causes the group to stare at her in surprise.

"Why should we?" The curly haired man growls.

"Well, even though he didn't do it on purpose, he made it possible to live a somewhat normal life without having to take orders from others."

"Normal? We're being hunted by the marines!" The angry looking man yells.

"She did say 'somewhat' and Strawhat can't be blamed for what he did. He was just trying to save someone he cares about. As much as some of you might deny it, we would do the same if we were in their situation." The blond comments, supporting the only female in the group.

"I agree! He helped us so we should help him!" A light haired man agrees dramatically. A big short haired man nods his agreement along with the tall man. The angry looking man sighs and grudgingly agrees they should help. All that is left is the curly haired man. He looks at their determined faces before rolling his eyes and sighing.

"Alright! Fine! We'll help rescue him!" The curly haired man grumbles. His companions smile and begin to get ready to sail towards Marineford. The curly haired man knows that he actually owes Strawhat a lot for accidentally giving him and his frie- I mean companions, a way to get out of working for a man they hated and if he searches deep deeeep down in his heart, he would find out that despite how happy he looks whenever he has to fight, he was getting sick and tired of killing for the government. If he looked deeper still, he would realize that he didn't like killing period. Ever since he could walk he has been trained to kill. It's the only thing he knew until he learned carpentry for the Water 7 assignment.

"Wow. I really am messed up." Rob Lucci says to his pet pigeon Hattori as he watches the rest of the former CP9 agents get ready to save the brat that caused him to lose his job and realize he probably needs to see a good psychologist.

"Ready or not. Here we come." Lucci says slightly monotonously as he stares at the picture in the Grand Line Times of a bloody Luffy chained up in his Level 6 prison cell.

_Skypeia_

"Hey Viper! What is this?" A young girl calls to a tall dark skinned man as she struggles to hold something feathered in her arms.

"I don't know, I can't get a good look at it with it struggling so much. And would you stop squeezing it so tightly Aisa? You're probably hurting it." The Shandian scolded. Aisa blinked a few times before loosening her hold on the feathered creature in her arms. The creature stopped it's flailing and sat relatively still in the girls arms.

"Oops." Aisa says.

"You better give it a big treat for hurting it. To answer your question, it is a bird. More specifically, a news coo." Viper answers.

"How do you know it's a news coo? It doesn't look familiar." Aisa inquires curiously.

"It's the pouch hanging from it's neck." Laki answers as she walks over with Conis, her father, and Gan Fall.

"Pouch?" Aisa asks, looking at the bag that seems to be full of something.

"Yes. It says news coo on the front. It gives you newspapers." Conis explains. She holds out her hand and the news coo gives her a Grand Line Times. After Conis accepts the newspaper, Aisa goes off to feed the bird before it flies away.

"So this is how the Blue Sea gets their news?" Viper asks as the group stares curiously at the rolled up newspaper. All they could currently see on it was the date and 'GRAND LINE TIMES'.

"Well? What does it say?" Laki asks.

"Let's see." Conis replies and unrolls it, no one suspecting that the first thing they would see is the bloody image of their savior chained up and waiting to die.

_Bilka_

"Enel-sama! Dax is back!" A flying robot cries as he flies up to his lord.

"Who?" The man asks while thinking, 'and who is this?'

"The one that disappeared a week ago. He somehow wandered off to the blue planet below us. He came back with this." The winged robot informs as he holds out a copy of the Grand Line Times.

"Of all the things he could have brought back, he chooses a Blue Sea newspaper." Enel states rather than asks, not quite knowing what to think about that.

"He thought you might want to see it because of what's on the front page. It reminded him of the stories you told us of when you were god of the White Sea and the White-White Sea."

"Front page?" Enel questions, than unrolls the newspaper and reads. "So, that Blue Sea monkey is getting executed? Huh."

End Chapter Two

AN: PLEASE READ THIS! okay, so you have a few people finding out about Luffy's imprisonment and soon to be execution. Some of them will definitely be at least involved in the war somehow whether it's fighting at marineford, picking off ships as they sail towards marineford so the marines aren't so much of a threat, or something else entirely. Then there is also people I just wrote getting a newpaper so that there is the possibility of them joining the fight. What I want to know is this.

is there anyone I did mention but didn't specify getting involved or didn't mention that you would like to fight for Luffy? This person could be

* an ally that just doesn't want Luffy to die because they like him or because he is ace's brother and dragon's son

* a former enemy that decided to help because Luffy changed him/her when he fought him/her and now this person is a good guy that wants to repay Luffy for what he did for them

* an enemy that wants to save Luffy so that they can kill him themselves

*a marine/shichibukai that decides to quit cause they don't want to fight against the people trying to save Luffy, someone they care about. The possible person I was thinking of here was Garp, but it could be anyone that likes Luffy and doesn't want him killed

remember, the ally's or former enemies or whatever don't have to necessarily be fighters. Dr. Kureha could be a good example. If she get's involved in the war, it would be somewhere during the end or after wards where her healing talents will be put to good use. See? Think out of the box and let me know who you want in the war and I might include them. A story is always better when your favorite characters are involved, yes?

if you want a strawhat involved in the war, they have to somehow get pulled back to wherever it is they came from and they can't help directly with the war because they're too weak, so if you want a strawhat in the war, it has to be from far away where they can pick off marine ships or sabotage their weapons or something. The only strawhat I had planned to involve was robin because she was already with the revolutionary army, so if you want anyone else involved, you have to give me a real good reason for them being there and how they can help without getting themselves killed. Otherwise, they won't be in the story.

Songs

Lucifer by SHINee

Honey (Japanese Vocaloid Version) by Cyndi Wang

Credits from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Sadness and Sorrow by Toshiro Masuda (Naruto)

Revelations by EuroBeats

Novicane by Green Day

Small Talk by Hania Lee (Tarboy)

Cirno's Perfect Math Class by someone other than me

We Are (9th opening version) by DBSK/TVXQ (One Piece)

I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters

For Real by Tokuyama Hidenori (Saiyuki)

The Ballad of Mona Lisa by Panic! At The Disco

Sakurabito by SunSet Swish (Bleach)

Our Solemn Hour by Within Temptation

Fleeting Moon Flower by Kagamine Len, Shion KAITO, and Kamui Gakupo (Vocaloid)

Vanilla by Gackt(fun fact: voices the vocaloid Gakupo and used to be the lead singer of Malice Mizer!)

Complicated by Seether

Tsunaida te ni Kissu Wo by Sanae Kobayashi ()

Kratos' Battle Theme from Tales of Symphonia

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene and Stop Going to Shows) by Fall Out Boy

104.7 KDUK 5 o-clock Traffic Jam


	3. More Reactions to the Grand Line Times

Ace: where have you been icefox?

icefox: I'm sorry! First there was school distracting me, and then my power chord fried, and then more school, and then I got sick with the flu, and then finals came up, and then there was lazy procrastinating moments in between all of that!

Ace: So, in short, a lot has happened to keep you from the story.

icefox: exactly. Everyone, sorry again for taking so long to update. I wanted to update a long time ago, but then a ton of stuff happened. Anyways, by popular request, I did another reactions chapter. It was mostly zoro and shanks requests, but I thought I'd add some other stuff I had planned. I tried to write nami in here because she was requested as well, but then my brain broke. I don't really care for nami in the first place, so I just kinda gave up and just decided that if I wanted lightning people than I would just use my almighty authoress powers and bring enel into the story for a little bit. His lightning is stronger than nami's anyways. I know some people may not care to read about more reactions and get further into the main story, so I'll try and finish the next chapter quickly. I have about 6 pages in my notebook already and each chapter is around 20 pages written out before I take stuff out and add stuff while I'm typing, so I'm already about ¼ of the way there. Anyways, enjoy the next chapter of change of plans everyone! Ace, disclaimer!

Ace: yes ma'am. icefox94 does not own One Piece. It is owned by Eichiro Oda.

Chapter 3: More Reactions to the Grand Line Times (by popular request)

_Kuraigana Island_

"W-what?" Zoro stutters, not believing what he just heard.

"You heard me."The golden eyed man replies, voice and expression devoid of emotion.

Perona was trying and failing to drag the green haired swordsman back to bed for the third time that day when Dracule Mihawk walks into the castle Zoro was trying to leave. After Mihawk finds out what they are doing in his house, he tells them why he came home.

"Wait! So, Mugiwara was captured by some guy named Blackbeard so that he could become a Shichibukai and now he's gunna be executed?" Perona yells, almost screeches, in a surprised run-on sentence.

"That's right." Mihawk says with a sigh.

"And this started a war with the Revolutionary Army?" Perona adds.

"Yes." Mihawk nods.

"Why?"

"Because the leader of the Revolutionary Army is Luffy's father." Zoro answers for Mihawk. The swordsman frowns and shifts his gaze from the floor to the golden eyed man. "How did the marines find out about Luffy's father?"

"I'm not quite sure. I don't know why they announced it in the papers either. Must have had something to do with the Gorosei or Tenryuubito." Mihawk answers thoughtfully, swirling in glass of red wine he's holding.

"Or they wanted everyone to watch. I heard that Mugiwara made it clear that the World Government was his enemy at Enies Lobby. If he was threatening them, it's not surprising that the World Government is making it known that he's the son of the most wanted man in the world. The more people that watch the execution, the easier it will be to make an example out of him and his father." Perona reasons.

"Hey, we only attacked Enies Lobby because CP9 was transporting our nakama to get executed! And we didn't blow up Enies Lobby! The Buster Call did!" Zoro exclaims in defense for his and his nakama's actions.

"WHAT? BUSTER CALL?" Perona shrieks in disbelief.

"Anyways," Mihawk interrupts, rubbing his temples in attempt to keep his headache from becoming a migraine. "after some food and rest, I'll be restocking my boat and heading towards Marineford. I want you off of my island before I'm done resting. There's a boat you can use in the old stable." with that, the black haired swordsman walks out of the room.

"So... what are you going to do?" Perona asks after a moment of silence, voice strangely quiet.

"I'm going to stop that execution." Zoro replies, standing from the couch he was sitting on and grabs his swords.

"How? You could barely beat Moria-sama with your entire crew and you were no match for Kuma! Not only will both of them probably be there, but so will the rest of the Shichibukai, all of the Admirals and Vice Admirals, the Giant Division, and over 1,000 regular marines! How are you going to do anything about that by yourself and injured?" Perona cries, sounding annoyed and maybe even a little worried.

"I don't know, but I have to at least try to save Luffy. I would never forgive myself if I just sat here and did nothing while my captain was killed." Zoro answers as he attaches his swords to his belt. When he finally looks up to meet her gaze, Perona sees unshakable determination in the Strawhat crew's first mate.

'He would go to save him even though he knows it will most likely kill him.' Perona thinks to herself in wonder. With this thought, she grudgingly decides that she will do whatever she can to help.

"Okay. How are you getting there? Do you know the way?"

"No. Do you?" Zoro says and asks right away. Perona could slap herself. The ghost princess can't count how many times the green haired man supposedly left only to wind up back at the castle or fighting the local monkeys because he took more than a few wrong turns.

'He couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag, so of course he couldn't get to Marineford on his own, even if he knew where it was!'

"Yes, I do. Come on." Perona says with a sigh and starts walking towards the kitchen. Zoro blinks at her in surprise.

"Eh?" Perona turns to face Zoro when she hears this and puts her hands on her hips.

"What do you mean "eh'? You would never be able to find Marineford on time if I just told you the directions, so I'm coming with you. Now, come help me get food! We're wasting time!"

Zoro stares at her a moment before grinning and walking towards the door.

"Who knew you could be so kind? Ghost Girl." Zoro says as he walks past Perona.

"I am not kind! And it's Perona or Ghost Princess to you!" the pink haired girl screams with a blush. "Hey! You're going the wrong way!"

_Unknown Location (New World)_

"and then he was thrown into the ocean! Since he ate a Devil Fruit, Luffy became even more of an anchor in water than normal and almost got eaten by the local seaking! But before that could happen, I swam out and pulled Luffy out of the way of the seaking, losing my arm in the process. The creature turns around to attack again when I glare at him. He was so scared, he ran away! Dahahaha!" Shanks says with a laugh. Benn sighs and shakes his head.

"Captain, you shouldn't be so nonchalant about something like losing your arm."

"Hey, you would have done the the same and you know it!" Shanks replies with a knowing smile. Benn opens his mouth to agree when he is interrupted by one of the new recruits Shanks was telling stories to.

"Hey, Captain? Is this the boy you were just talking about?" the recruit asks, looking at a paper.

"I don't know. Let me see."

Benn gets up and walks over to his captain as the recruit hands over the Grand Line Times. The captain's and first mate's eyes widen at the headline and picture, than darken as they read the article.

"What's wrong, Captain?" Yasopp asks Shanks. When he doesn't answer, the blond sharpshooter turns to Benn who is still staring at the paper over Shanks' left shoulder. "Benn? What happened?"

Benn finally tears his eyes from the paper to look at Yasopp and Lucky Roux standing to the blond's right.

"It's Luffy. He's in Impel Down."

"WHAT?" Yasopp and Lucky Roux exclaim along with the rest of the listening Red Hair Pirates.

"Luffy's in Impel Down. For now." Benn says with a sigh while pulling out a cigarette.

"What happened?" Lucky Roux asks, repeating Yasopp's earlier question.

"Apparently, he was alone on Amazon Lily when the Blackbeard Pirates got him. He was turned in to the marines in exchange for Blackbeard becoming a Shichibukai. Now he's in Level 6 of Impel Down awaiting execution in a little over a month at Marineford." Benn answers, lighting his cigarette and blowing out some smoke.

"Why Marineford?" a newer crew member asks.

"Luffy's father is a pain in Sengoku's side, so they're making a big deal about his execution."

"Who's Strawhats father?" another crew member asks Yasopp, who shrugs his shoulders.

"I don't know. A few of us have asked once or twice, back when he was still a kid living in the East Blue, but never got an answer. The only blood related family he was aware of was Monkey D. Garp."

"Well, not anymore, I'm sure. Says here his father is the Revolutionary Dragon." Benn supplies, glancing at the paper still in Shanks' hands with fake calm.

"I can definitely see why they're making such a big deal about it then." Yasopp says with closed eyes, sighing and scratching the back of his head. He opens his eyes and than turns to look at his captain. "So, what do you want us to do, Captain?"

The redheaded captain looks up with barely contained fury to lock eyes with his sharpshooter.

"We're going to Marineford."

The crew get's determined looks on their faces while Yasopp, Lucky Roux, and Benn grin.

"I was hoping you would say that."

_Alabasta_

Cobra and Vivi Nefertari, King and Princess of the desert island Alabasta, are relaxing in a sitting room drinking tea when they hear shouts and a high pitched quacking coming towards them. The father and daughter just barely have the time to process the noise and turn towards the door when Igaram, Pell, Chaka, and Kaoru burst into the sitting room with worried looks on their faces.

"What is the matter?" Cobra asks, than sees a slightly crumpled Grand Line Times in Igaram's clenched right fist. "Is it about an article in the Grand Line Times?"

"I'm afraid so, Your Majesty. Look." Igaram answers and hands the crumpled paper over to the king. Cobra smooths out the paper and reads the front page article with Vivi reading over his shoulder.

"Luffy's in Impel Down? No way!" Vivi exclaims, covering her mouth with her hand and tearing up. Kaoru waddles over to her and gives her a concerned quack.

"This is horrible news. I wish there was something we could do for him." Igaram says with a frown.

"'Wish there was something we could do'? Of course there is something we could do!" Vivi yells, glaring at the curly haired blond.

"And what would that be, Vivi?" Cobra asks calmly.

"We go to Impel Down or Marineford to save him!" Vivi says with a determined look on her face.

"No." Cobra rejects. Vivi's determined expression falls.

"Why not? I've fought before! I was partnered with Mr. 9 in Baroque Works!" Vivi points out. Cobra shakes his head.

"Baroque Works and this are on completely different levels. You can't fight. We can't fight. It doesn't matter what the reason is, if Alabasta fights against the World Government, we will be destroyed."

"But we can't just sit back and do nothing! Luffy has done so much for us. We can't just watch him die!" the blue haired princess protests.

"His Majesty did not say we would do nothing, merely that we can't fight." Pell says, speaking for the first time since the group entered the room.

"What are you thinking, Pell?" Chaka questions.

"Fighting isn't the only way we can help Strawhat. During your time with the Strawhats, did you ever meet anyone that might be able to help him now?" Pell inquires, causing Vivi to think for a moment.

"The first time we met was at the entrance to the Grand Line. They became friends with a humongous whale and the keeper of the lighthouse. I don't believe they would be of much help."

"Very well. What happened next?"

"Next was the trap at Whiskey Peak. Even if there were members of Baroque Works that wanted to help Luffy, I wouldn't know where to find them now."

Pell nods his head at this. "Next."

"Nami's Log Pose led us to Little Garden where we befriended the giants Dorry and Brogy. They've been there for the past 100 years fighting over something they forgot about a long time ago."

"Get them to stop fighting and they may be a big help. Next."

"On Little Garden, Nami was bitten by something poisonous, so our next and final stop before reaching Alabasta was Drum Island. Dr. Kureha cured Nami and healed Sanji and Luffy, who were hurt getting Nami to the doctor. Luffy also defeated the former king of Drum Island, Wapol, for his horrible treatment to his people." Vivi finishes.

"So, we need to send Alabasta's fastest ship to Drum Island and Little Garden for help." Cobra summarizes. Vivi looks at her father in surprise.

"Father...?" Vivi questions. Cobra just smiles at his daughters confusion.

"It's just like Pell said. I only said Alabasta could not fight. I never said we couldn't help. You will be going with the ship I send to convince them to help and make sure they don't tell anyone Alabasta assisted pirates, right?"

Vivi stares at her father in awe, than smiles. "Of course I will!"

Cobra's smile widens at this. 

"Good." With the confusion cleared, he turns to Chaka. "Have our fastest ship prepared with volunteers and Eternal Poses to Drum Island and Little Garden. If any official's ask what you are doing once you get nearer to Sabaody Archipelago, tell them that Princess Vivi wanted to see the Archipelago or something. They shouldn't have reason to suspect that we are helping a pirate escape execution, but you can never be to careful."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Chaka accepts his orders with a smile.

_First Half of the Grand Line_

"Vivi! Drum Island has been spotted. We will be there within the hour." A blond shouts from the crows nest. Vivi smiles from her position at the starboard railing with Kaoru.

"Thank you Kouza." Vivi replies.

"No problem." Kouza says. After a short pause, he speaks again.

"There's also a small ship headed our way."

"Ship?" Pell questions as he comes above deck with Chaka.

"Yes. It looks like it was well made, but possibly put together quickly. The only passengers I see are two male giants."

"Two male giants?" Chaka parrots to himself, than looks at Pell and Vivi off to his right. "Could these two giants be your friends from Little Garden?"

"It's possible..." Vivi mutters to herself, then climbs up to the crows nest. "Kouza, may I borrow your spyglass?"

"Of course." Kouza says while handing his spyglass over. Vivi thanks him and looks through it to see two very familiar giants in a ship just strong enough to hold them and brave the sea.

"It is them!" Vivi says in amazement, her voice almost a whisper. With that said, she gives Kouza back his spyglass and climbs out of the crows nest to run to the bow of the ship.

"DORRY! BROGY! LOOK! IT'S VIVI!" Vivi shouts as she waves both hands above her. Kaoru joins her at the bow and begins to get the two giant's attention by flapping his wings and quacking.

"OH? DORRY LOOK! IT'S VIVI!"

"YES! IT'S VIVI BROGY! LET'S STOP AND SEE WHERE SHE'S GOING!"

With that, the two yelling giants steer their ship towards Vivi's ship.

"Dorry! Brogy! It's so good to see you! But what are you doing off of Little Garden?" Vivi exclaims than asks after the two ships are latched together.

"A news coo wandered over Little Garden one day, so Dorry decided to get a newspaper from it before it left." Brogy starts.

"When I read about Luffy being imprisoned in Impel Down, I told Brogy and we decided to stop our fighting long enough to help try to save him." Dorry continues.

"It's hard to stay on course without a Log Pose though." Brogy mentions, scratching his head.

"Good thing we have a spare Eternal Pose to Fishman Island." Chaka notes while pulling said Eternal Pose out of his pocket.

"How will an Eternal Pose to Fishman Island help them?" Vivi asks Chaka but Pell answers.

"There are no Eternal Poses to Marineford, at least, there aren't any available to civilians, so you have to aim for Sabaody Archipelago. The problem with Sabaody Archipelago is it doesn't have a magnetic pull, being a huge mangrove, so you have to aim for Fishman Island somewhere under Sabaody Archipelago and the Red Line."

While Pell explains the Eternal Pose problem to Vivi and the giants, Chaka writes something down on a piece of paper. When he is done, Chaka walks over to the railing the giants were at and held out the Eternal Pose and the piece of paper.

"Follow the Eternal Pose until you get to the Red Line, than follow these directions to get to Marineford."

"Thank you." Brogy thanks as he accepts the Eternal Pose and directions.

"Where are you going Vivi?" Dorry asks.

"We're going to Drum Island to get more help for Luffy." Vivi answers.

"Good. Don't take to long." Brogy warns.

With that, the friends say goodbye, the giants of Little Garden to go save a friend and the princess of Alabasta to get help to save a friend.

_Drum Island_

"-and that's what happened. So please, will you come with us to save Luffy?" Vivi pleads in Drum Island's 'throne room'. Dalton, the current ruler of Drum Island, speaks first.

"I have no qualms about saving Mugiwara-san, especially after everything he has done for the people of Drum Island. The problem is, I can't act on my own since I am the ruler now. I will have to speak with everyone first."

"Understandable." Pell acknowledges with a nod. "We only ask that you decide whether you can help or not in time for us to leave here and reach Marineford before the execution starts."

"Of course."

Having gotten Dalton's answer for the moment, Vivi turns her attention to the rooms other occupant.

"What about you? Will you help?"

The figure slouched cross legged in the old throne doesn't answer immediately, being too preoccupied drinking sake like it was water to speak right away. When the old -I mean, young- woman was done, she lowered the sake bottle from her lips to smile sadly at it.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time, Strawhat brat?" Doctorine ponders to herself. Vivi gives her a questioning look.

"Doctor Kureha?" The blue haired princess inquires. The doctor in question just shakes her head.

"Very well. I will go with you to save the brat. There are enough people that know medicine for me to leave without anyone dying. But I will be staying at Sabaody Archipelago. I don't want to go to Marineford unless things start to look bad and they need a mad doctor." Dr. Kureha concedes, making Vivi smile in happiness.

"Yes! Thank you so much Dr. Kureha! I know you are not doing it for me, but I still want to say thank you!" Vivi thanks with tears in her eyes.

"You're welcome. And call me Doctorine." Dr. Kureha responds, than turns to one of the islander's acting as guards. "You! Send messengers to all three towns and have them tell everyone to come here immediately. Their speed and presence is important!"

"Yes Doctorine!" The man snaps a solute, than runs out of the throne room like he was being chased by the devil. Chaka, Pell, and Kouza watch the man with curious eyes while Vivi sighs. Some things never change.

_Meeting place of the Gorosei_

"Announcing the arrival of Saint Roswald, Saint Shalulia, and Saint Carloss." a slave announces after entering the room ahead of his masters. With that, the three Tenryuubito walk into the room like they owned the place, annoying the Gorosei present.

"What are you three doing here?" The bald Gorosei with a katana demands in a ticked off voice.

"We heard you captured the Strawhat captain for us. We want him now." saint Roswald answers simply. The bald Gorosei just raises an eyebrow.

"Captured for you?" questions the youngest Gorosei.

"Yes, for us. He punched my son at the Human Auction House and escaped his punishment. We want him given to us so we can make him pay." Roswald clarifies.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. We already have Monkey D. Luffy scheduled for execution in little over a month." a Gorosei with a long beard and mustache informs.

"But he punched meeee!" Carloss says in an angry voice.

"He has to pay for what he did to my brother and we will not leave until we get him!" Shalulia screeches. This causes a huge argument to erupt between the two most powerful groups of people in the world about the fate of one rookie pirate captain.

_Impel Down_

The clicking of heels on concrete can barely be heard over the frustrated yells and clanging of chains in a certain cell in Level 6. The yelling and clanging stops as the person with heels stops in front of their cell and starts to unlock it. Once she is inside, the woman in heels stands before the pirate captain with a smile.

"It's time for your ~mmm!~ daily punishment, Monkey D. Luffy." an orange haired dominatrix in pink purrs, almost moans, to the person inside of the cell. Luffy just responds with an uncharacteristic death glare that would make Ace proud.

"Go to hell Sadi." he growls as he tries to pull his bleeding wrists out of the seastone handcuffs attached to the wall he was sitting against.

"It's Sadi-chan! ~Mmm!~ Today is the day I will make you scream in agony instead of annoyance." Sadi-chan says as she pulls her whip out of her trident.

"No it's not." Luffy denies, refusing to give her the pleasure of hearing him scream. He hasn't yet and it'll stay that way until the day he dies. In response to this, Sadi-chan raises her whip over her shoulder and grins sadistically.

"~Mmm!~ We shall see."

End Chapter Three

icefox: so... if you see any errors, go ahead and ignore them. Usually, I proofread the bidoof off of chapters before I posts them, but I feel bad for taking so long, and I wanted to post this since it's done before washing the dishes and finally going to bed. *stares at clock that reads 4:03 am* anyways. Like I said before, I have the next chapter started, so it should be up relatively early, though I will be busy tomorrow and I start another college term on monday, so I don't know how soon that will be. Got choir, body conditioning, history of asia, and creative writing argumentation to look forward to. Anyways, again, see you next chapter, whenever that is.

icefox

Songs

Released Power by Yasuhara Takanashi (Fairy Tail)

Black Hearts and Dollar Signs by Fade

Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO

The Worst Pies in London sung Helena Bonham Carter (Sweeney Todd)

Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day

World So Cold by Three Days Grace

If I Had You by Adam Lambert

Sexting by Blood On The Dance Floor (kiddies don't listen to this song. I'm embarrassed for listening to this song and I'm 20 years old. I blame Black Tiger[Tiger & Bunny])

Lullaby Sky by Megurine Luka and Kaai Yuki

Lilium (Saint Version) by GRIFFEN Chorus (Elfen Lied)

Crazy Bitch by Buckcherry (probably best if kiddies didn't listen to this song either...)

Darkness by Disturbed

Kokoro no Chizu by Boystyle (One Piece)

What's My Age Again? by blink-182

Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne

24 by Jem

Touch Your Arms Against Me (The Bad Touch, (I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight, Hold it Against Me) mash up by Kap Slap

Bass Cannon by Flux Pavilion

God Knows (Orchestra Version) by Aya Hirano

Highschool of the Dead by Kishida Kyoudan

Under Pressure sung by the entire cast of the Sing-Off (second season... I think)

History's Greatest Battle Music Playlist by Crextal on YouTube


	4. Infiltration of Impel Down

icefox94: hello everyone. Here's the long awaited fourth chapter to Change of Plans. Sorry it has taken so long. I'm a full time college student, so I don't really have all that much time to write.

Ace: she shouldn't have even finished this chapter yet, because she has a lot to do, but she has a bad habit of procrastinating, so I guess it can't be helped.

icefox: hey, I'm doing okay. There's no problem with me working on this right now.

Ace: says the woman who had a nervous breakdown last friday right before choir because of the piled up schoolwork and cried off an on the entirety of her class.

icefox: we were working on lux aeterna the entire class. It's an emotional song written as a tribute to those that can't be with us right now for whatever reason. It would have made me emotional anyways.

Ace: okay, if you say so.

icefox: I do say so! Anyways, first off, I have a poll up on my profile for story ideas to work on after I get a few stories finished. I'm easily distracted and it's hard to concentrate on just one or two stories, so I'm actually more productive story wise if I have multiple to work on, so please take a few seconds out of your day to pick two ideas you like if possible. If you don't like any of them, at least you tried to help. And for anyone still planning on giving me input on who they want in the war (and who actually read these notes) I will not be accepting OCs. There will only be existing characters in this story, so no one give me profiles for OCs to add. Quinn may seem like an OC, but he's not. At first, he was just going to be a random RA without much importance just there to deliver the message about Luffy, but then someone asked about him, so then I turned him into the light brown haired RA member with the tan cloak and teal feathered bowler hat. Did I make up his abilities in this story? Yes, because all the one piece wiki said was that he was seen using a flintlock, so since what I made up was already mastery of long ranged weapons, I stuck with what I originally randomly made up. I couldn't find his name before, so I gave him a random one. Now that I know it's Bunny Joe, I'm changing his name to that from now on. If you don't read this and get confused... too bad for you. Ace, do the disclaimer.

Ace: yes ma'am. Eichiro Oda owns One Piece. The only thing icefox 'owns' is the switch in the plot, as much as she wishes otherwise.

icefox: yeah. If I owned one piece, Luffy would have gotten you out of marineford safe and sound. Now, on to the story!

Chapter Four: Infiltration of Impel Down

"Looks like we'll be within sight of Impel Down soon. We should probably start planning everything out." The assistant says to Robin and Bunny Joe as he climbs out of the crows nest.

"Very well. To start off with, what are everyone's abilities? Does anyone besides me have a Devil Fruit?" Robin starts, looking at the two revolutionaries.

"I don't have any Devil Fruit powers and I use projectile weapons. Guns, bows, throwing knives/stars/needles, etc. I can use any long ranged weapon effectively, though I tend to favor a flintlock. You want something attacked over a long distance, I'm your man." Bunny Joe says with a grin. Robin smiles back and turns to the assistant, who takes his cue to answer.

"I use staves. A can effectively use pretty much anything stick-like as a weapon. Right now, I'm using a 3 section staff called a Coiling Dragon staff that Dragon recently gave me, but I'm best at using a Bo staff. I have one strapped to my back under my cloak in case I need it. I'm also quite good at climbing and picking locks... Oh, and I also don't have any Devil Fruit powers."

Robin nods at this information and re-informs them of her abilities.

"I have Devil Fruit powers. I ate the Hana Hana no Mi, which allows me to grow extra body parts wherever I want to as long as there is a solid surface for the limb to grow on. Because of this, I am quite good at gathering information and using long ranged attacks. I can also make ropes, nets, even fly for 5 seconds."

"Everyone seems to have formidable abilities." the assistant notes.

"Indeed. Now that we are aware of those abilities, how can we use them to rescue Strawhat Luffy?" Joe questions.

"I believe that before we plan that out, we should plan our infiltration." Robin suggests.

"Do you have any ideas?" Joe asks her, but is answered by the assistant.

"No need to worry about that. The crew of this ship is painting marine symbols onto the ship to disguise it as a marine warship. It already looks like one of their galleys, so that should be an easy task. For the three of us, we will say we are new guards for Level Six. We have extra marine uniforms and if that's not enough to disguise us, there is also wigs, colored contacts, and make up to change our looks. A few revolutionaries that came with us are stylists specialized in disguises."

"Will that be enough? I do not know about you, but I do not believe they will take our word about being new guards simply because we say so. There are too many dangerous prisoners in Impel Down for them to be so sloppy." Robin questions.

"We have forged documents signed by Vice-Admiral Garp saying that he transferred us there." the assistant informs, smiling slightly.

"Would they accept marines transferred by a prisoners grandfather?" Robin asks.

"They have no reason not to. Above all else, Monkey D. Garp is a Vice-Admiral and hero of the marines. No one would suspect he would send lowly guards to free Luffy. Plus, anyone who know him would believe he is incapable of planning anything. He tends to think with his fists." answers the assistant, the smile turning a little sad, a change Robin's sharp eyes notices right away.

"And how would you know this, Staff-san?" Robin inquires with a curious smile. The newly dubbed 'Staff-san' loses his smile when he notices the scholars curious yet suspicious eyes.

"Dragon is Garp's son. I am Dragon's assistant. It's no surprise I know about him."

"Of course." Robin agrees, still smiling, though you can tell she thought there was more to it than that. 'Almost sounds like he is speaking from experience.'

"Okay. So we disguise ourselves as marines and get to Level Six with no fights because of that. How are we going to get Strawhat out?" Joe asks.

"Our ship will be arriving around the time Luffy is suppose to be escorted to Marineford. We'll just help the marines take Luffy up to the surface level and get him away from there and back onto our ship before he's put on a real marine ship."

"Alright. Sounds good to me, Staff-san." Joe says with a teasing grin towards the assistant as he uses Robin's new nickname. Staff-san just smiles pleasantly and advises both Joe and Robin to change into their disguises.

As the trio walk into their respective changing rooms, Robin reviews the conversation. She finds it quite curious that the assistant suggested they come up with a rescue plan but already seemed to have everything planned out. His knowledge of Vice-Admiral Garp make her suspicious as well.

'No. Not his knowledge.' Robin corrects herself as she undresses to don the marine uniform laid out for her.

The assistants knowledge of Vice-Admiral Garp is not surprising. What is surprising is the way he speaks about him and his barely concealed emotions. The way the assistant talked about Garp suggested that he has met the man before. And the emotions he tried and failed to hide was a complicated mess of fear, affection, and respect. A lot like her captain.

'Hm... I wonder if Sencho-san has another big brother he hasn't told us about?' Robin muses to herself while putting on the white and blue marine cap to complete her uniform.

"I do not believe this will be enough." Robin decides, observing herself in the full length mirror in her room. She did look like a marine, but anyone who has seen her bounty poster will know that she is a wanted pirate.

Robin stops staring at her troubling reflection when she hears a knock on the door.

"Come in." her calm alto voice rings out. At the permission to enter, a female revolutionary enters the room.

"I came to see if you need any extra disguises. Looks like you do." the woman says as she looks the scholar up and down. "Yup. Definitely need extra help."

"Looks like it." Robin agrees with a smile.

Deciding how to change Robin's looks took a lot longer than the stylist cared for, but eventually she decided on a long wavy deep burgundy (purplish brown) and dark auburn (bronze-like red) wig, bright green/gray contacts, and waterproof make up on any visible skin to make her natural tan disappear.

"And there you go. I wish I could do more, but anything more I could do wouldn't make you any more of a stranger because of your facial and body structure. You might have to pull your hair back into a pony tail or braid just to look more uniform, but that's easy for anyone to do. Trust me, that wig's not moving an inch until I say so!" The stylist says as she steps back to survey her work. Robin turns to look in the mirror and is happy to see that she is unrecognizable.

"You did a lovely job, Stylist-san. Thank you." Robin congratulates in her soft alto.

"Why, thank you miss! You're very welcome!" The stylist exclaims with a happy smile.

*knock knock*

"Come in." Robin calls.

In walks Bunny Joe and the assistant, both looking odd without their corresponding feather and top hats.

"Uh, Staff-san? I think we're in the wrong room. We're looking for Nico Robin. Not a random marine woman." Joe teases to the assistant, who smiles in return.

"Good, I'm not recognizable." Robin says.

"Definitely not." Staff-san agrees. "We came to get you because we're almost at Marineford, so we wanted to make sure you were ready."

"Yes, I am ready." Robin assures.

"Good. Let's get up on deck."

With that said, the trio make their way up on deck.

'The revolutionaries did a wonderful job disguising themselves as marines.' Robin can't help but note to herself once the trio get on deck. Everyone is running around in marine uniforms and there were marine colors and symbols everywhere she looked. They even talked like marines and carried themselves the same way. If Robin didn't know better, she would have thought that she had wandered onto a real marine ship.

Within minutes, the ship is sailing in front of Impel Down's doors. The captain of the ship contacts those controlling the doors inside and, after a few mandatory questions, their disguised galley is let in.

Once the ship is at the docks and finish what needs to be done before disembarking, most of the crew leaves to ship. Only Robin, Staff-san, and Joe were technically on the rescue mission, but it would have been suspicious to have only three marines transferring like they were, so whatever crew members didn't have good excuses to stay on the ship would stay in Levels one to three as well as tech rooms until they get signals from the rescue team. After that, the ones in the levels would release the prisoners and they would slip away in the panic.

After exiting the ship, the revolutionary group make their way towards the entrance and are greeted by a pot bellied man.

"Hello everyone. I am Hannyabal, the Chief Warden. Which of you were sent by Vice-Admiral Garp to guard Level Six?" The pot bellied man questions after introducing himself.

"That would be us, sir." Staff-san answers as he steps forward with Robin and Bunny Joe. When the trio is in front of him, Staff-san hands Hannyabal their forged documents.

The Chief Warden looks through them and nods.

"Looks like everything is in order. I'll take you three down to Level Six now. Everyone else will follow Head Jailer Domino." Hannyabal instructs, raising his voice when addressing the rest of the group and pointing towards a pretty blond wearing a hat and sunglasses.

"Yes sir!" The revolutionary group answers, the rescue team following Hannyabal while the rest follow Domino.

'This guy sure is ambitious...' Robin, Joe, and Staff-san unknowingly think in unison while walking towards the elevator. Hannyabal is claiming that everything was his and then apologizing for getting ahead of himself the entire way.

Arriving at the elevator, the group of four get in, thanking whoever was listening that Hannyabal stopped talking once the elevator starts to descend.

"So, where were you stationed before coming here?" Hannyabal asks.

They should have saved their thanks for later.

"Enies Lobby, before training with Vice-Admiral Garp." Joe answers. Hannyabal raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"Enies Lobby?! Were you there when the Strawhats attacked?"

"No, fortunately. Right before the Enies Lobby incident, we had a run-in with Vice-Admiral Garp. He saw some hidden potential in us, so he dragged us away to train. Guarding Level Six is, in a way, part of that training." Robin answers, plastering a pleasant smile over the frown of worry trying to make itself known.

"I see. It was lucky that you three were away training. If you were at Enies Lobby when the Strawhats attacked, you would probably be dead right now." Hannyabal responds with a grin.

"Yes... probably..." Robin agrees distractedly, eyes clouded over in remembrance. Her companions notice Robin's distracted features and are about to discreetly snap her out of it when the elevator comes to an immediate halt.

"What? Why are we stopping? This isn't Level Six." Hannyabal mutters as he fiddles with the elevator buttons.

"What level is this?" Staff-san questions as the trio stares into the snow covered forest.

"That is Level 5, the Freezing Hell, the second lowest level in Impel Down." Hannyabal answers with a huff, giving up on making the elevator work. "The elevator's not working. We'll have to go through Level 5 to the door so that we can take the stairs down to Level 6."

"Walk through Level 5? Isn't that kind of dangerous?" Joe questions, keeping up the facade of new guard. Hannyabal huffs again.

"You're gunna have to have more guts than that to guard Level 6. Now come on and keep up. If you get lost here, you'll freeze to death."

With that, the Chief Warden opened up the elevator gate and led the trio into the snow covered landscape.

"So, where is this door?" Joe asks as he closes the elevator gate behind the group.

"Oh, it's close by. We won't even have to walk by the prison cells on this floor." Hannyabal answers as he leads the way into the forest.

The group of four is only in the forest for a few moments when they hear the sound of wolves.

"Get ready to fight! These are not your average wolves!" Hannyabal warns.

That's when everything went dark.

_Unknown Location_

Robin wakes with a start. Gasping, she tries to sit up, but falls back down when the back of her head starts throbbing.

'What happened?' Robin groggily inquires of herself. She remembers hearing the howls of wolves in the frozen prison and darkness. What caused the darkness? Oh, that's right. The pain. Someone or something hit her on the back of her head, causing her to pass out.

'That's right. I passed out after something hit me while I was preparing to fight...' Robin remembers before realizing something. 'I'm not cold. I should be freezing. Where am I?' That's when Robin finally opens her eyes.

She appears to be in some sort of cave. A simple warm cave with not much in it other than the comfortable bed she is laying on. Separating her little cave from whatever is outside is a simple cloth.

While contemplating what to do, a familiar face pushes the cloth aside and smiles when he sees Robin awake.

"Oh good. You're awake. I was starting to get worried." Joe says with a grin. Robin smiles back.

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"A few hours. We started to get worried 'cause the doctor said you should have only been unconscious for a few minutes." Joe answers as he helps Robin stand.

"What happened?" Robin questions.

"Apparently, prisoners have been disappearing for a while now." Staff-san answers as the two walk out of Robin's cave where he was waiting outside and walk towards the main cave. "No one knew how, just that there was no trace of them left. Because of this, they were impossible to find. Eventually, the wardens just started to cross names off of the list of prisoners whenever there was a disappearance. There are many rumors going around about what happened to the prisoners, but the truth is: they never left. They created their own level in between Levels 5 and 6 and have been living there lavishly for years without the Wardens suspecting a thing."

"So that is where we are? This Level between 5 and 6?" Robin questions as they enter a bigger cave full of people. "Am I to assume the residents of this new level also stopped the elevator, knocked us unconscious, and brought us here?"

"My my. You really are bright. Just like the rumors say." Says an observational tenor in a thick Transylvanian accent. Robin, who was looking at Staff-san while talking to him, turned curiously towards the... man? the voice came from.

"Hello. I do not believe we have met before." Robin greets.

"No, ve haven't, but I don't need formal meetings to see how smart you are, Nico Robin." the man says, making Robin's eyes widen slightly and look to see if her disguise was still intact. Seeing this makes the man chuckle.

"Don't vorry, you're disguise is still intact. The only reason ve know vho you are is because of a former co-vorker of yours."

"Former co-worker?" Robin repeats, eyes narrowed. Now, who could this man/woman be talking about?

"Hey! Long time no see, Miss All-Sunday!" an entirely too happy voice shouts dramatically. Robin turns toward the voice to see an okama twirling in place like a ballerina.

"Mr. 2, I never thought I would ever see you again." Robin greets, polite smile hiding her caution. "Tell me, what are you doing here?"

"I was captured by the marines in Alabasta and was brought here. Ivankov-sama helped me escape from my cell in Level 3. When I saw the snail video of you disguised in the elevator, I thought you needed help, so I told Ivankov-sama who you were."

"That was very kind of you, but why did you help me?"

Bon Clay stops spinning to grin cheerfully at the scholar.

"I heard you joined Mugi-chan's crew, so I thought you might want help saving him."

"Why would you want to save him, Mr. 2? the Strawhats were your enemies." Robin questions.

"Suspicious I'm setting a trap, Miss. All-Sunday?" Bon Clay smiles knowingly. Robin smiles back.

"Yes."

"Well, if you must know, I became friends with Mugi-chan and his crew before I knew they were enemies of Baroque Works." Mr. 2 informed, pirouetting again. "And what about you? Why did you join the Strawhats when they were enemies?"

The question sounded like mild curiosity on the okama's part, but Robin had a feeling that if she didn't answer correctly, she would have to answer to his okama kenpo.

"At first, I meant to use him and his crew like everyone else. I was stabbed by Crocodile and slowly dying as everything began to collapse around us. I wanted to die there, in the collapsing ruins of Alabasta, but Luffy wouldn't let me. I used that as an excuse to join the crew, saying he owed me for forcing me to live when I wanted to die. Surprisingly, or not, he agreed right away, telling the crew not to worry because I'm not a bad person.

"The more time I spent with the Strawhats, the more I began to like them, genuinely like them, as comrades, as friends, and even family. The incident at Enies Lobby only solidified these feelings."

"Enies Lobby? Ve've all heard that the Strawhats attacked it, but we don't know the circumstances. Care to explain?" Ivankov interjects.

"Of course." Robin nods in acquiescence, but didn't look too eager to talk. "CP9 found me in Water 7. They wanted me to help them assassinate the mayor Iceburg as well as accompany them to Enies Lobby without complaints. In return, they would leave the rest of the crew unharmed and allow them to escape. I did what they asked, but everyone followed me to Enies Lobby. I tried my best to keep them from following me, but it seemed that the more I did, the more determined they were to save me.

"When they heard about my background, I thought for sure that they would stop trying to save me, but they proved me wrong. Luffy had Usopp set the World Government flag on fire, declaring war on the World Government, before telling me something I will never forget." Here, Robin pauses, as if she suddenly turned mute. Staff-san takes pity on her and pushes her along with a question.

"What did he say?"

Robin stood in silence for a moment, staring at the earthy floor, before answering.

"He said that he still hadn't heard it from my mouth and demanded I say I want to live."

"And your response?" Staff-san prompts again with a small smile.

"I told him that I want to live and begged him to take me out to see with him." Robin answers, an emotion filled smile on her face.

"And then they saved you."

"Yes, they did. Everyone fought valiantly, to the point that they could not fight anymore. When it looked like were were going to die there courtesy of the Buster Call, an amazing little ship called the Going Merry sailed to Enies Lobby all on it's own from Water 7 to rescue us when it was so damaged it couldn't survive the return journey. When Merry sailed as far as she could go, we were found by Galley -La who gave us a ride back after we had a funeral for the best caravel in the world."

By the time Robin is done explaining, everyone is in tears. Some were loudly praising the power of friendship while waterfalls of tears cascaded from their eyes and snot rained from their noses.

"What a beautiful story, Miss All-Sunday! I'm sorry I ever doubted you!" Bon Clay cries as he grasps Robins hands, who smiles.

"It's quite alright, Mr. 2, you had a good reason to be suspicious. And please, call me Robin."

"Only if you call me Bon-chan." the okama demands after wiping his tears away.

"Very well, Bon-chan." Robin agrees.

"The story and friendship are beautiful and everything, but can I be the downer and steer the conversation back on topic? We infiltrated Impel Down to rescue Strawhat Luffy. If you're not going to help us, than I would suggest you let us leave. The execution will take place soon and we would like to get him out of here before the transport ships come for him." Joe interjects.

"Ve never said ve veren't going to help. For curiosity's sake, vy are you trying to save Mugivara boy? I can understand vy Nico Robin, scholar of the Strawhat Pirates, vould vant to save him, but vy is the Revolutionary Army involved? The letter you gave me did not say vy."

"Why?" Staff-san reiterates. "Well, that's easy enough to answer. Luffy is Dragon's son."

"Oh, of course. That's right. He's Dragon's son." Ivankov says, as if knowing all along. After the words leave his mouth, what the assistant says finally registers in the okama's brain.

"EH?!" he screams, wide eyed, as he flies backwards into the wall and crashes to the floor. The other okama react the same way, without crashing into walls. "M-M-MUGIVARA BOY IS DRAGON'S SON?!"

"Yes, he is." Staff-san answers calmly.

"IMPOSSIBLE!"

"I heard it from the man himself."

"Then ve have a problem!" Ivankov panics. Robin, Staff-san, and Joe's eyes narrow on the purple afro okama.

"What is wrong?" Robin questions, almost demands.

In hurried tones, Ivankov tells them everything he knows about what has happened to Luffy. Throughout the explanation, the trios eyes grow wide in fear and disbelief. When Ivankov finishes the explanation, Robin shakes her head in denial.

"I don't believe you! That's impossible! It would never be allowed!"

"Unfortunately, everything I say is true." Ivankov laments over the fate of his friend's son.

"Prove it." Robin demands. Everyone's eyes go wide.

"Prove it?! There is only one vay to prove that vhat I say is true and that's too dangerous!" Ivankov warns.

"It was too dangerous to attempt this rescue, yet here we are." Joe points out. Staff-san nods in agreement.

Ivankov looks at the determined faces of the trio and shakes his head.

"You're all crazy. Oh vell, I guess it's about time ve moved out. Fine, I vill prove that vhat I say is the truth and then ve vill leave for Marineford!"

The okama cheer at this while the trio smile.

Once the okama are ready to move out, the large group leaves Level 5.5. At the stairs, the group splits up: Robin, Staff-san, Joe, Ivankov, Inazuma, and Bon-chan head for Level 6 while everyone else race towards the surface, releasing prisoners as they went.

Surprisingly enough, the group makes it to Level 6 without any problems. When they arrive, all they have to do is knock out the guard on duty before letting the three okama lead them to Luffy's cell.

"... it's empty." Robin voices in shock as she stares at the blood soaked cell in disbelief.

"We tried to tell you." Inazuma says quietly.

"It's true. Almost a month ago, Mugivara boy vas taken by the Tenryuubito."

End Chapter Four

**Songs**

The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses Movement 4

Half the Man by Threshold (X-Men: First Class trailer)

Rock Me Amadaeus by Falco

Sugar, We're Going Down by Fall Out Boy

Basket Case by Green Day

Save Your Life (Instrumental) by Les Friction

Gangnam Style by Psy

Guilt by Nero

Words by Skylar Gray

Stereo Hearts (Dillon Francis Remix) by Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levigne

In Pieces (Xilent Remix) by DJ Magic & Wickaman feat. Dee Freer

Firestarter by Kdrew

Titanium by David Guetta feat. Sia

To the Stars by Modestep

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)(Milan and Phoenix Remix) by They Might Be Giants


	5. Level 6

icefox94: *messing around with stacks of cards while sitting under a tree*

Ace: *walks up to tree and stares warily at a long haired vampire with red and white markings perched on a low branch* um, icefox? I hate to bother you while you are trying to update your beast deck, but the readers are here...

icefox: *glances up from a stack of green cards* huh? *sees readers* oh! um... hi? *gently shoves cards away* sorry it's taken so long to update this. When I'm not busy, I don't have access to my computer. I'm not home very often lately... What are you staring at Ace?

Ace: Um, who is that? *points at vampire*

icefox: *follows finger with eyes* Oh, that's Vampire Nighthawk. He's just keeping watch. He wouldn't attack you or anything, but it would probably be a good idea to not touch his weapons, claws, fangs, or anything else he attacks with. He has lifelink and deathtouch, so it would probably turn out badly for you.

Ace: Noted. *sits down next to author and glances through the cards*

icefox: Anyways, if you guys read the author's note for the last chapter, than you would have heard about the two polls I made. One for favored ongoing stories and the other for story ideas for future fanfiction. I was completely new to polls when I made them and didn't realize you could only have one poll on your profile at a time, so I only have the one concerning story ideas up. Once I figure out what story I will work on next, I will put the other poll up. I'm actually more productive when I have multiple projects to work on, so letting me know your opinion, if you haven't all ready, will help out a lot.

Ace: how about this card? *holds up a creepy deformed looking wolf*

icefox: Witchstalker? I dunno. Beasts are all about aggressive cards above the mana curve. This guy is the mana curve.

Ace: true, but he also has hexproof and he get's stronger whenever an opponoent casts a blue or black spell during your turn. If nothing else, it's a good replacement for one of the Darkthicket Wolfs. Those are the mana curve as well and you have to repeatedly pay mana to make them a little stronger.

icefox:... kay. *looks back at readers* oh, you're still here?

Just in case you are confused, vampire nighthawk, witchstalker, and darkthicket wolf are creatures from the popular strategy card game called Magic: The Gathering. Here's a link to what they look like:

Vampire Nighthawk (also known by my friend as the lonely bird man): ww m/slide show/vam pire-nighth awk

Witchstalker: gathe m/Pa ges/Car d/Detail ?mult iverseid=3708 06

Darkthicket Wolf: gather m/Pag es/Car d/Detai ?n ame=darkth icket%20wo lf

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or Magic: the Gathering. One Piece is owned by Eiichiro Oda and Magic: the Gathering was created by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast. 

Chapter 5: Level 6

"What do you mean 'taken by the Tenryuubito'?" The usually calm and collected Robin demands angrily. The angered looks on Joe and Staff-san show they want to know as well.

"Ze Tenryuubito are ze most poverful group of people in ze vorld. Nothing is denied from zem. If ze vant an Impel Down prisoner, they vill get an Impel Down prisoner vith little no no argument. Ze must have seen ze news in ze paper and demanded zat he be given to zem to deal vith for punching one of zem on Sabaody and getting avay vith it. By now, he has probably been branded and thrown into a seastone fight cage."

"What about the execution?" Staff-san questions.

"It hasn't been canceled, so we can only assume a deal was struck for the Tenryuubito to punish him with slavery for a month before getting the satisfaction of watching him die publicly while being nice and comfortable at home." Inazuma answers as he calmly swirls his wine, creased eyebrows and down turned lips revealing that he was frowning.

"Then we have to get out of here quickly and get to Marineford before the execution." Joe sum up.

"Not without me." A rough voice growls. The group spins around to see a scarred man in brown with a gold hook for his left hand. His black hair was slicked back from his face and a cigar was in his mouth. All in all, the perfect picture of a suave yet dangerous man.

"Crocodile." Robin whispers in surprise.

Crocodile sees his former right hand woman's reaction to his presence and smirks.

"Miss All-Sunday. How... strange, to see you risking your life for someone else. I was certain that I had poisoned you, Strawhat, and King Cobra at Alabasta, though I have to say I'm not surprised that all of you survived. I'm assuming you gave yourself and the others an antidote?"

"... something like that." Robin answers vaguely, uneasy in the presence of her former employer and attempted murderer.

"What do you want?" Staff-san demands. Crocodile raises an eyebrow at the tone.

"Strawhat is the one who put me here in the first place. If anyone is going to get the pleasure of killing him, it's going to be me and it's going to be on my own terms." the former Shichibukai answers calmly, than smirks. "Plus, you'll need all of the help that you can get to escape. The marines here know about you three now and won't let you just walk out of here."

"Unfortunately, Croc-boy is right. Ve need his help to leave this place." Ivankov agrees reluctantly.

Joe rolls his eyes at this and slices through the cell lock with one of his throwing knives before pushing the door open and and calmly walking over to Crocodile.

"Impressive, Bunny Joe. Impressive, but unnecessary." Staff-san compliments as he tosses lock picking tools in the air before catching them repeatedly. He resisted the urge to call Mr. I-can-cut-through-metal a show-off.

"That takes too long." Joe says, smirking towards Staff-san as he reads the thoughts visible in his eyes. He calmly slices through the locks keeping the seastone shackles on the former Shichibukai and step back out of the cell.

Crocodile rubs his wrists and stands as he nods at Joe in appreciation, than turns to the rest of the enlarged rescue group.

"So, do you idiots have a plan, or are you making this all up as you go along?"

"For now, the plan is simply to escape this place, releasing prisoners as we go to create confusion and more work for the marines here. We'll start with that on a different level." Staff-san explains as the group head for the stairs, knowing the elevator wouldn't work thanks to the video den den mushi showing the control room what is happening on Level 6.

"Wait. Let me out too. I want to help as well." says a slightly rough tenor voice.

The group stops and turns to their right to see a fishman with long black hair and a jagged long nose. He was tall and well muscled, wearing long shorts and an unbuttoned short sleeved shirt.

"You're the sawshark fishman Arlong, captain of the Arlong Pirates. What are you doing here in Impel Down and why do you want to rescue Monkey D. Luffy?" Staff-san interrogates, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I'm here because the other prisons either couldn't handle me, didn't know how to imprison fishmen, or both. As for my reasons for wanting to help, let's just say that it would be more beneficial to me for Strawhat to live past the execution." Arlong hedges. This omittance just makes Staff-san even more suspicious.

"I'm afraid I'll need more than that to release you. The mission is to save Strawhat's life. I'm not about to release someone just for them to kill him the minute he is free."

"What about Crocodile? You freed him knowing he wants to kill Strawhat. All you racist humans are the same."

"It has nothing to do with race. We know enough about Crocodile to know he's telling the truth when he says he wants to kill him only on his own terms and will therefore save him and keep him alive until he can escape and he's fully recovered from any possible injuries. For us to release you, we need to have that same level of assurance that you won't kill Strawhat the minute he is free." Joe answers for Staff-san as he casually sharpens an unusually sharp sai.

Arlong glares at them for a moment before giving up with a sigh. He's not going anywhere if he doesn't cooperate, so he'll set his hate for humans aside until Strawhat is free and away from Marineford.

"Alright, fine. I'll tell you. Doubt you'll believe me, but it's the truth."

"We'll try to keep an open mind." Robin assures as she looks uneasily towards the stairs where Bon Clay, now joined by Ivankov and Inazuma, were watching for guards.

"The truth is, Strawhat has to survive so that he can save Fishman Island."

Silence meets Arlong's confession as the group processes the fishman's words.

"... what?" Staff-san asks oh so eloquently. Crocodile snorts at this.

"He's talking about that insane mermaid that visited him a few month ago. Was that your mentally retarded girlfriend or something?" Crocodile insults with a smug smirk.

In a flash, Arlong is up and smashing against his cell in an effort to break out and get to the scarred former warlord of the sea.

"INSULT MY LITTLE SISTER AGAIN AND I'll RIP YOU APART IN THE MOST PAINFUL WAY POSSIBLE AND FEED YOU TO SEA MONSTERS!" Arlong roars, his eyes wide and tinted red in his fury.

When Arlong reacted the way he did to Crocodile's words, everyone excluding the now laughing pirate, jumped into battle stances aimed at Arlong. When Staff-san realizes he was only defending his little sister, he puts his staff back and slowly approaches the furious fishman's cell.

"Arlong-san?" Staff-san tries.

Arlong snaps his blood seeking eyes to the staff wielder, breathing heavily and gripping the bars in front of him so tightly, the knuckles on his purplish blue skin turned almost white. The protective brother stares at Staff-san with a strange mix of anger, curiosity, blood lust, and superiority. The curiosity encourages the blond to keep going. "What happened when your sister came to visit?"

Staff-san's question makes Arlong lose steam. The fishman relaxes his muscles enough to let go of the cell bars in favor of leaning against the wall so that his shackles stop cutting into his wrists and legs.

"She unexpectedly came to visit me a few weeks ago. I didn't know she knew I was here or that I was even in prison, let alone how she got the permission to visit me. The Grand Line Times didn't exactly say much when Strawhat defeated me and I was captured. I guess we have her clairvoyance to thank for that. Or her brain. She's one of the smartest people I've ever known, so it wouldn't surprise me." Arlong starts, voice and eyes calmer now as he remembers the day his little sister came to visit him in this hell hole.

(Flashback)

"_Fishman Arlong." Vice Warden Magellan greets as he walks up to Arlong's cell._

_Arlong raises his head off of his chest and stares at the poison man in contempt from his relaxed position on the floor._

"_What do you want, human?" Arlong demands as he leans his head back against the cell wall, arms and legs crossed on front of him casually._

"_Don't use that disrespectful tone with me, Fishman, unless you want to be punished." Magellan threatens automatically on reflex. He repeats variants of those words so many times every single day that they have become a conditioned response whenever any of the prisoners are being disrespectful to him in the prison. "As ridiculous as it sounds, especially in this place, you have a visitor."_

_'Visitor?' Arlong repeats to himself as his eyes narrow in confusion. 'I don't know anyone that can visit me here though.'_

_The confused fishman's train of thought halts completely the minute his visitor comes into his line of sight. In walks a large muscled fishman from Neptune's army. In his arms is a large beautiful short fin mako shark mermaid. She is very curvy with pale skin and short black hair covered mostly by a long sleeved hooded purple blouse only buttoned halfway up to reveal the cleavage of her well endowed bosom. One side of her pretty face is covered by her hair while the other side reveals slanted blue eyes with slitted pupils ringed with eyeliner. Her fin was an off white color and a silvery gray with the bottom of the fin curling backward to make a crescent moon shape: the reason why she was being carried unlike other mermaids who can walk on their fins. In her long fingers with purple painted nails was a simple pipe._

_The soldier walked up to the front of the cell, set the mermaid down gently, and bowed._

"_Madame." the soldier says respectively. The large mermaid smiles calmly at the soldier and nods her head, giving the soldier the signal he needed to leave her to her visit until she was done. Once the soldier was gone, the beauty turns her calm gaze to the fishman frozen in shock before her and curls her fin around to her side to be more comfortable._

"_I've missed you, Onii-chan." Shyarly greets with a smile._

"_Shyarly!" Arlong exclaims as he bolts out of his relaxed position on the floor and moves in front of the short fin mako shark mermaid. "What are you doing here?! You know how dangerous it is for our kind, especially mermaids!"_

"_Not all humans are bad, Onii-chan. All I had to do is avoid the bad ones and I'm fine."_

"_All humans are evil and need to be punished for it."_

"_If you really think that way, than it's no surprise that you're locked up here." By now, Shyarly is losing the concern she held for her brother when she arrived. Arlong widens his eyes at this, than narrows them in self-righteous anger._

"_The humans deserved what they got and more!" Arlong exclaims, doing his best not to shout at his little sister and failing. Unfortunately for Arlong, Shyarly was not enlightened by his words. She just looked disappointed, a look that stabbed at the pirates heart more than anger would have._

"_Do you really believe that, Onii-chan?" Shyarly asks quietly, almost in a whisper._

"_Yes, I do." Arlong answers with a nod. Shyarly shakes her head in sadness and more disappointment in response._

"_Than you are just as bad as the humans you so hate." Shyarly reprimands, stunning her older brother._

"_How am I on the same level as those vermin?!" Arlong demands to know. Shyarly shakes her head again._

"_This exact reason. You believe all humans are bad no matter their actions or age. You think all of them deserve death and enslavement because they are weaker than you." Shyarly summarizes. Arlong snorts at these words._

"_It's true."_

_Shyarly stares at her brother with a look of contemplation, than opens her mouth hesitantly._

"_As a female mermaid who was never trained to fight, I am as weak as the average human. On top of that, I can't walk on my fin like most mermaids do because of the way it's shaped. Considering all of these weaknesses, should I be persecuted the way you persecute humans?"_

"_No! Never!" Arlong denies, stunned at Shyarly's words._

"_How about death, torture, or enslavement? Do I deserve any of that?" Shyarly continues to question. Arlong shakes his head in denial._

"_No, of course not! You're-"_

"_In the exact same situation the humans are in. The only difference is I can breathe underwater and talk to fish and they can walk."_

_For a moment, Arlong is too stunned to speak. All he can do is stare at Shyarly as she gazes back in sad disappointment. When Arlong can finally break out of the stunned silence he slipped into, he closes his eyes and sighs._

"_What are you doing here, Shyarly? I know you didn't come here risking your life and freedom just to reprimand me about my beliefs." Arlong questions, tired of arguing with the only family he has left. Shyarly took pity on her brother, for now, in favor of telling him why she came._

"_I had a vision involving someone that will be imprisoned here soon." Shyarly admits._

_Arlong straitens in surprise at this and leans forward expectantly. Arlong, as well as all of Fishman Island, knew of Shyarly's foresight and it's 100% accuracy. He even remembered the night she had her first vision._

_It was Shyarly's fourth birthday and 16 year old Arlong was tired. In the months that passed since their mutual father dumped Shyarly in Arlong's care, the young mermaid had wormed her way into a special place in the teenage fishman's heart. When he found out her birthday was coming up, he begged a sympathetic merfolk to give him a job, at the very least until he had enough money to get a few nice things for his sister's birthday. Shyarly hated it when he stole and wouldn't accept any gifts that had been stolen, so Arlong did his best to earn decent money for her birthday. Moved by his love for his sister and impressed by his hard work, his boss gave him a permanent job with him before sending him off with his well earned money. On the way home, Arlong bought Shyarly's favorite cake, ice cream, and ingredients for her favorite meal. For a present, he bought her a beautiful crystal ball he saw her admiring one day but didn't have the money to get for her right away. Shyarly, of course, loved everything that her brother did for her, especially when she found out that it was paid for with decent money._

_After eating and present opening, Arlong said an early goodnight to Shyarly, who was still wide awake and playing with her present, and fell asleep in their shared bed. A few hours later, Arlong awoke to hear Shyarly screaming. Arlong jumped out of bed to comfort her. Once Shyarly had calmed down, he found out that she had a vision of the Great Pirate Age beginning. Of course, Arlong didn't know it was a vision and thought nothing of it. After assuring Shyarly that it was only a dream, Arlong brought his four year old sister to bed and held her until both of them fell asleep._

_Soon after having it, Shyarly's vision came true, with much more coming after it, bringing her current fame as 100% accurate fortune teller with them._

"_Who is the soon-to-be-imprisoned your vision is about?" Arlong questions, knowing he or she must be important for Shyarly to risk death and enslavement to come tell him about it._

"_Monkey D. Luffy." Shyarly answers, making him smirk._

"_The scum is finally getting what's coming to him? Good." Arlong celebrates. Shyarly frowns at this._

"_He will be brought here to await execution. I need you to help him escape before he leaves here."_

"_Excuse me?" Arlong asks in surprise. "Why should I help him? He's the human that put me here in the first place!"_

"_Your skewed ideals are what put you in jail and you should help him because Fishman Island will be in danger one day and he will be the only person able to save it."_

"_You saw Fishman Island in danger?"_

"_It was almost destroyed with the royal family and most of the island almost killed with it. In my vision, Strawhat Luffy and his crew are the only ones strong enough to take on those trying to destroy Fishman Island."_

"_Do you know who endangered the island?"_

"_... no." Shyarly answers hesitantly. Arlong sees and hears the hesitation in her voice and gives her a 'you-really-think-i-buy-that?' look. She sighs and gives in. "Okay, fine. I have a clue as to the type of person, but not the person specifically. It is someone who can shoot an unnaturally powerful water-shot. It went strait through the mermaid shot with it and went through coral and buildings before halting at Mermaid Cove."_

"_And where was the water-shot shot from?"_

"_The little scenery I could see looked like Gyonchorde Plaza."_

_Here, Arlong's eyes widened in stunned surprise. No water-shot was that strong. The fishman who shot it must have taken major steroids for it to pass through the mermaid and everything else the way it did... wait a minute. Mermaid?_

"_What mermaid was shot?" Arlong demands to know. Shyarly doesn't answer, but her silence was more than enough to tell Arlong who it was. "I'm gunna kill him."_

"_You don't even know who it is." Shyarly points out._

_I'll find out, and then I'm gunna kill him. I don't care what their race, gender, or age is, no one hurts my little sister and get's away with it."_

"_That's very sweet of you, Onii-chan, but how are you going to find out who will do something that hasn't happened yet?" Shyarly questions._

"_You said the water-shot was unnaturally powerful, right? Going off of that, we can assume that the fishman who shot it was on crazy strong steroids. The only fishmen crazy enough to take steroids live in the fishman district."_

"_All right. I will talk with the royal family and we will do what we can to prevent my vision from coming true, but you have to promise me one thing before I leave here today."_

"_What?" Arlong questions hesitantly, uneasy about what the mermaid wants him to promise._

"_I need you to promise me that you will do what you can to prevent the execution of Strawhat Luffy."_

(End Flashback)

"I promised her that I would do whatever I could, but I can't exactly do whatever I want here, so I was pretty much useless when that insane dominatrix Sadi came down here for punishments and when the guards came to take Strawhat away. The best I could do was delay them with distractions, but they didn't do any good. That's why I want to help. I want to keep my promise to my sister and save my home."

"Wow, Arlong-san," Staff-san comments after Arlong's story, " I have to say, I'm impressed. I have only heard bad things about you and your treatment towards humans, so I expected the worst when you requested your freedom to help save Strawhat. Now I hear that you are willing to save the life of someone you hate for the sake of others. That's very admirable."

Arlong huffs at the unwanted compliment and turns his head away, becoming visibly more impatient.

"So, are you going to let me out or not?" Arlong demands impatiently, the question growled out between clenched fangs.

"I don't know. What do you think, Joe? Robin?" Staff-san inquires to the other two. Robin smiles.

"I believe he is trustworthy enough to bring along." Robin allows. Joe simply nods in agreement.

"Very well. Welcome to the team, Arlong-san. Please try to refrain from being killed. We'll be fighting against some of the world's strongest." Staff-san greets with a tease. Arlong took offense to this.

"I am not so easy to kill, human." Arlong informs as he joins the humans near the exit.

"Good. You won't be any help to us if you die to easily. Now come along everyone. We need to get as far as we can before the marines in the control room can figure out how to block the stairs."

With that, the group of eight race up the stairs. They manage to get to Level 3, releasing prisoners as they go, before being confronted by Sadi and her creatures in Level 2.

"Mmm!~ I hope you don't really believe you will be escaping! Especially with so many prisoners! We have a reputation to uphold, you know." The pink clad dominatrix exclaims in her moaning soprano.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but we do believe that. It's important that we leave here immediately. We have an appointment to keep." Staff-san replies with a polite smile. This makes Sadi pout.

"You're going after Strawhat Luffy, aren't you?"

"We are." Robin answers. This upset Sadi even more.

"Mmm!~ He was no fun! No matter what Sadi-chan did to him, he never screamed! All he did was ~mmm!~ glare!" Sadi whined. This makes Staff-san and Robin angry.

"Am I correct in assuming that you are Sadi-chan?" Robin clarifies. Sadi smiles at this.

"Yes, I am Sadi-chan ~mmm!~! Chief Commander of the 5 Demon Guards."

"Why were you trying to make Strawhat scream?" Staff-san questions. This causes Crocodile and Arlong to roll their eyes while the others simply glare or cower in fear of the orange haired woman.

"Because I ~mmm!~ love torture!" Sadi moans in a quivering soprano, the mere thought of it making the woman blush and squirm in pleasure. "The sound of pained screams, the coppery smell of blood, the sight of someone on their knees in defeat! ~Mmm!~ It's so wonderful!"

At this answer, Staff-san whips out his staff, Robin crosses her arms in front of her with her palms facing skyward, Bon Clay fluidly shifts into an odd half ballet/half karate position, and Bunny Joe pulls shuriken and senbon out of nowhere to hold in a throwing position. Behind them, the New Kama and prisoners take their lead and ready themselves for battle, the less than courageous shifting to the back of the group while the brave and battle hungry fill the empty places in front.

"Wrong answer, Orenji-iro no Kami-san*." Robin informs. A polite smile is on her face, but one look at the dangerous gleam her bright contacts have adopted would tell you she is far from being a happy camper.

The 5 Demon Guards Sadi commands, as well as the nearby monsters of Level 2, ready themselves to attack the threat to their home. Sadi simply twists her whip out of her trident and holds both ready for combat with a smile on her face.

"Mmm!~ Let me hear you scream!"

End Chapter 5

* Orenji-iro no kami: Google translate said this was "orange hair" in Japanese. After typing that into the story, I decided that it was quite a mouthful, so I tried looking for something else and got Orenji-shoku no kami. I didn't know which one to use, so I just went with the google translate version. If anyone else has a better way of wording it, let me know and I'll fix it.


End file.
